In January of 1962 judgments of guilty were
entered, fines were assessed and the defendants appealed
to the Maryland Court of Appeals. In 1963, the lower
court judgments were affirmed. Petition for certiorari
was sought with the United States Supreme Court and
that petition was granted.
In 1964 the Supreme Court rendered its decision
in the Belle Case and in four other cases which had
reached the Court in the field of public accomodations
discriminations and the court remanded the case to the
Maryland Court of Appeals primarily on the pant that
Maryland in 1963 had passed the state-wide public accomo-
dations law, which applied to Baltimore City and which
abolished the crime for which the defendants were charged
and in the light of that new act, the Supreme Court-
suggested that the "laryland Court of Appeals might want
to reconsider its affirmance of the convictions, hut it
was not until April of 1965, five years later, that this
financially burdensome and long litigation ended with a
reversa] of the lower court conviction.
Now, in 90 percent of the cases that reached