Atlanta Daily World

U. S. Court Bars Miss. Gov. From Contempt Action

JACKSON, MISS. A panel of three Federal judges Thursday refused to cite Mississippi Gov. J. P. Coleman for contempt of court because he rejected a Federal court subpoena issued in connection a Negro minister's suit against the state's voter registration laws.

Meanwhile, a Jefferson Davis County circuit clerk testified he had been investigated twice by the FBI but that no charges were made against him concerning his method of applying the state's voter registration laws to Negroes.

The Rev. H. D. Darby is challenging the state's voter registration laws. During the trial of his suit Wednesday. a subpoena was served on Gov. Coleman, ordering him to testify on a survey he conducted while he was attorney general concerning the number of Negro voters in the state.

Presiding Judge Ben Cameron of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. a member of the three-judge panel, said the governor is the chief executive of a state and is immune to processes such as a subpoena. He said the evidence the plaintiff is seeking will be declared incompetent.

Also in Jackson. Jefferson Davis County Circuit Clerk James Daniel is charged with discriminating against Negroes who sought to re-register after a 1956 purge of the county's voter rolls. He testified that the FBI made no charges against him and that he applied the same requirements equally to both white and Negro.