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Court v. Court. All this plunged Pye into an extraordinary hassle with the federal courts that hinges on a rarely used relic of Reconstruction days: Section 1443, Title 28, U.S. Code. Designed as an escape hatch from lower courts, it allows a defendant to petition for removal of his case from a state to a federal court if his civil rights are nullified by the state's legal apparatus. But unfairness is hard to prove, and federal judges are notably loath to affront state courts by accepting such cases. Lately, however, defendants all over the South have sought to escape state courts through Section 1443. And nowhere have they been more successful than in Judge Pye's court.
Pye has hardly taken it lying down. In a single week last month, he twice defied the Federal Government. When the U.S. Court of Appeals took over 20 of his trespass cases, Pye protested that they were still his, "hide, hair and talon," kept them on his calendar for trial. He reacted similarly when U.S. District Judge Boyd Sloan removed another 38 trespass cases. It was to no avail. Sloan enjoined the county sheriff from touching any of the total 58 ex-Pye defendants, then sent his marshals to free the jailed Prathia Hall.
His bench stacked with 46 law books, Judge Pye is now angrily pressing for an appeal to the Supreme Court. The odds against him seem high. Last week his 42 current trespass defendants requested trial in federal court. As for Pye, his days as a Superior Court judge may be numbered. His eight-year term runs out early next year: if he aims to stay on the bench, he must run for reelection in November. Atlanta newspapers are generally against him. And Negroes, who comprise about 35% of Fulton County's population, can hardly wait for election day.