Shufflin' Sam's Long Step

While he waited for his bus one chilly Saturday night, Sam Thompson, a bibulous Negro handyman, ducked into Louisville's Liberty End Cafe for a beer and a little fellowship. Under the influence of both and the rhythm of a blaring jukebox, Sam began shuffling a dance step. Two cops who happened by decided that his shuffling was in fact "loitering," and when Sam argued, they added a charge of disorderly conduct. A police court judge fined him $10 on each .charge. Under Kentucky law, Sam Thompson's case was closed--no fine under $20 can be appealed to another state court. But last week the U.S. Supreme Court reached-down to the lowest rung on the ladder of justice, set aside the fines by unanimously ruling that shuffling was no crime.

With the case before them on direct appeal by Thompson's attorney, the Justices explored shuffling at length. ("What is a shuffle dance?" asked Justice William Brennan. Replied Louisville's uncomfortable assistant city attorney: "I presume it is some sort of dancing that uses a system of shuffling.") They concluded that no evidence of loitering or disorderly conduct existed. Wrote Justice Hugo L. Black for the court: "Although the fines are small, the due-process questions presented are substantial."

The court's unusual policing of police-court proceedings flashed a warning that convictions for loitering and disorderly conduct, often based on flimsy evidence or none at all, might now be toppled wholesale. But for Sam Thompson, who enjoyed a victory countless drunks have only dreamed of, the decision didn't mean much. When it was handed down, he was back in Jefferson County jail in Louisville, serving a six-month term on four other misdemeanor charges.

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