CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT-DISCRIMINATION IN SELECTION OF GRAND JURORS

Authors

Alan C. Boyd S. Ed., University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Defendant's conviction of murder was affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which rejected defendant's claim that discrimination in selection of the indicting grand jury had violated his constitutional rights. Defendant pointed out that the Negro proportion of grand jurors had uniformly been less than the ratio of Negroes to the total population of the county, and that on the past twenty-one lists the commissioners had consistently limited the number of Negroes to not more than one on each grand jury. On certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, held, reversed. Limitation of the number of Negroes on a grand jury to the approximate proportion of Negroes in the county eligible for grand jury service would constitute unconstitutional discrimination in violation of the rights of a member of that race against whom an indictment was returned by the grand jury so selected, since the accused is entitled to have charges against him considered by a grand jury in the selection of which there is neither inclusion nor exclusion because of race. Intentional exclusion proved by the statements of the commissioners that they chose for service only those whom they knew and that they knew no eligible Negroes was the actual discrimination on which the unconstitutionality was based. Cassell v. Texas, 339 U.S. 282, 70 S.Ct. 629 (1950).

Recommended Citation

Alan C. Boyd S. Ed., CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT-DISCRIMINATION IN SELECTION OF GRAND JURORS, 49 Mich. L. Rev. 759 (1951).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol49/iss5/9