If the state constitution and laws in regard to selection of
jurors, as construed by the state court, are consistent with the
Fourteenth Amendment, this Court can go no further, and will not
revise the decision of the state court as to whether the local law
has been complied with.
There is nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment which prevents a
state from excluding and exempting from jury duty certain classes
on the
bona fide ground that it is for the good of the
community that their regular work should not be interrupted.
Even when persons liable to jury duty under the state laws are
excluded, it is no ground for challenge to the array if a
sufficient number of unexceptionable persons are present.
The facts are stated in the opinion.
Page 201 U. S. 639
MR. JUSTICE Holmes delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiffs in error were indicted for murder, tried, and
found guilty. Leonard Rawlins was sentenced to the penitentiary for
life, and the others were sentenced to be hanged. When the grand
jury was organized each of the accused filed a written challenge to
the array, on the ground that,
"while there are in Lowndes County many lawyers, many preachers,
ministers, many doctors, many engineers and firemen of railroad
trains, and many dentists, as many as ten of each class named, or
other large number of each of said class, all citizens and
residents of said county, and being competent and qualified jurors,
as to age and uprightness, experience and intelligence, and as to
all the legal qualifications of a juror, yet each and every one of
these classes of citizens, and each and every member thereof in the
county, is expressly and purposely excluded from the grand jury
service by the commissioners failing and refusing to put any of
said names in the box, so that, not being in the box, they cannot
be legally drawn for service."
The challenge was repeated as a plea in abatement, and the petit
jury was challenged on the same ground. Rights under the Fourteenth
Amendment were specially set up and claimed. The challenges and
pleas were overruled, subject to exceptions. The exceptions were
overruled by the supreme court of the state, 52 S.E. 1, and a writ
of error was taken out to bring the case to this Court.
At the argument before us, the not uncommon misconception seemed
to prevail that the requirement of due process of law took up the
special provisions of the state constitution and laws into the
Fourteenth Amendment for the purposes of the case, so that this
Court would revise the decision of the state court that the local
provisions had been complied with. This is a mistake. If the state
constitution and laws as construed
Page 201 U. S. 640
by the state court are consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment,
we can go no further. The only question for us is whether a state
could authorize the course of proceedings adopted, if that course
were prescribed by its Constitution in express terms.
When the question is narrowed to its proper form, the answer
does not need much discussion. The nature of the classes excluded
was not such as was likely to affect the conduct of the members as
jurymen, or to make them act otherwise than those who were drawn
would act. The exclusion was not the result of race or class
prejudice. It does not even appear that any of the defendants
belonged to any of the excluded classes. The ground of omission, no
doubt, was that pointed out by the state court -- that the business
of the persons omitted was such that they either would have been
entitled to claim exemption or that probably they would have been
excused. Even when persons liable to jury duty under the state law
are excluded, it is no ground for challenge to the array, if a
sufficient number of unexceptional persons are present.
People
v. Jewett, 3 Wend. 314. But if the state law itself should
exclude certain classes on the
bona fide ground that it
was for the good of the community that their regular work should
not be interrupted, there is nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment to
prevent it. The exemption of lawyers, ministers of the gospel,
doctors, and engineers of railroad trains -- in short,
substantially the exemption complained of -- is of old standing,
and not uncommon in the United States. It could not be denied that
the state properly could have excluded these classes had it seen
fit, and that undeniable proposition ends the case.
Judgment affirmed.