1. When the jury commissioners of a state court intentionally
and systematically exclude negroes from among the persons summoned
and listed for jury service, an indictment for murder, returned
against a negro by a grand jury drawn or selected from such lists,
is void under the equal protection clause of the fourteenth
Amendment. P.
306 U. S.
357.
2. In determining whether, as matter of fact, such
discrimination existed in this case, the findings and conclusions
of the State Supreme Court, though entitled to great respect, are
not binding on this Court. P.
306 U. S.
358.
189 La. 764, 180 So. 630, reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
Indicted for murder, petitioner, a member of the negro race, was
convicted and sentenced to death in a State court of the Parish of
St. John the Baptist, Louisiana.
Page 306 U. S. 355
The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed. [
Footnote 1] His petition for certiorari to review the
Louisiana Supreme Court's judgment rested upon the grave claim --
earnestly, but unsuccessfully urged in both State courts -- that,
because of his race, he had not been accorded the equal protection
of the laws guaranteed to all races in all the States by the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. For this reason,
we granted certiorari. [
Footnote
2]
The indictment against petitioner was returned January 18, 1937.
He made timely motion to quash the indictment and the general
venire from which had been drawn both the Grand Jury that returned
the indictment and the Petit Jury for the week of his trial. His
motion also prayed that the Grand Jury Panel and the Petit Jury
Panel be quashed. This sworn motion alleged that petitioner was a
negro and had been indicted for murder of a white man; that at
least one-third of the population of the Parish from which the
Grand and Petit Juries were drawn were members of the negro race,
but the general venire had contained no names of negroes when the
Grand Jury that indicted petitioner was drawn; that the State
officers charged by law with the duty of providing names for the
general venire had "deliberately excluded therefrom the names of
any negroes qualified to serve as Grand or Petit Jurors, . . ." and
had "systematically, unlawfully and unconstitutionally excluded
negroes from the Grand or Petit Jury in said Parish" for at least
twenty years "solely and only because of their race and color"; and
that petitioner had thus been denied the equal protection of the
laws guaranteed him by the Constitution of Louisiana 1921, art. 1,
§ 2, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States.
No pleadings denying these allegations appear in the record, and
the State offered no witnesses on the motion.
Page 306 U. S. 356
Petitioner offered twelve witnesses who were questioned by his
counsel, the State's Assistant District Attorney, and the court. On
the basis of this evidence, the trial judge sustained the motion to
quash the Petit Jury Panel and venire and subsequently ordered the
box containing the general venire (from which both Grand and Petit
Juries had been drawn) emptied, purged and refilled. This was done;
a new Petit Jury Panel composed of both whites and negroes was
subsequently drawn from the refilled Jury box and from this Panel a
Petit Jury was selected which tried and convicted petitioner.
Although the Grand Jury that indicted petitioner and the quashed
Petit Jury Panel had been selected from the same original general
venire, [
Footnote 3] the trial
judge overruled that part of petitioner's motion seeking to quash
the Grand Jury Panel and the indictment.
First. The reason assigned by the trial judge for
refusing to quash the Grand Jury Panel and indictment was that
"the Constitutional rights of the defendant [are] . . . not
affected by reason of the fact that persons of the Colored or
African race are not placed on the Grand Jury, because . . . the
mere presentment of an indictment is not evidence of guilt . . . it
simply informs the Court
Page 306 U. S. 357
of a commission of a crime and brings the accused before the
court for prosecution."
But the bill of rights of the Louisiana Constitution 1921 (Dart.
1932, Art. 1, § 9) provides that "no person shall be held to answer
for capital crime unless on a presentment or indictment by a grand
jury. . . ." And the State concedes here, as the Supreme Court of
Louisiana pointed out in its opinion in this case, that
". . . it is specially provided in the [Louisiana] law
prescribing the method of drawing grand and petit jurors to serve
in both civil and criminal cases that 'there shall be no
distinction made on account of race, color, or previous condition
[of servitude]'"
and
"If . . . [qualified] members of the Negro . . . race . . . have
been systematically excluded from . . . service in the parish of
St. John, . . . solely because of their race or color, the
indictment should have been quashed. . . ."
Exclusion from Grand or Petit Jury service on account of race is
forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment. [
Footnote 4] In addition to the safeguards of the
Fourteenth Amendment, Congress has provided that
"No citizen possessing all other qualifications . . . shall be
disqualified for service as grand or petit jurors in any court of
the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color or
previous condition of servitude. . . . [
Footnote 5]"
Petitioner does not here contend that Louisiana laws required an
unconstitutional exclusion or negroes from the Grand Jury which
indicted him. His evidence was offered to show that Louisiana --
acting through its administrative officers -- had deliberately and
systematically excluded negroes from jury service because of race,
in violation of the laws and Constitutions of Louisiana and the
United States. [
Footnote 6]
Page 306 U. S. 358
If petitioner's evidence of such systematic exclusion of negroes
from the general venire was sufficient to support the trial court's
action in quashing the Petit Jury drawn from that general venire,
it necessarily follows that the indictment returned by a Grand
Jury, selected from the same general venire, should also have been
quashed.
Second. But the State insists, and the Louisiana
Supreme Court held (the Chief Justice dissenting), that this
evidence failed to establish that members of the negro race were
excluded from the Grand Jury venire on account of race, and that
the trial court's finding of discrimination was erroneous. Our
decision and judgment must therefore turn upon these disputed
questions of fact. In our consideration of the facts, the
conclusions reached by the Supreme Court of Louisiana are entitled
to great respect. Yet, when a claim is properly asserted -- as in
this case -- that a citizen whose life is at stake has been denied
the equal protection of the country's laws on account of his race,
it becomes our solemn duty to make independent inquiry and
determination of the disputed facts [
Footnote 7] -- for equal protection to all is the basic
principle upon which justice under law rests. Indictment by Grand
jury and trial by jury cease to harmonize with our traditional
concepts of justice at the very moment particular groups, classes
or races -- otherwise qualified to serve as jurors in a community
-- are excluded as such from jury service. [
Footnote 8] The Fourteenth Amendment entrusts those who
because of race are denied equal protection of the laws in a State
first "to the revisory power of the higher courts of the State, and
ultimately to the review of this Court." [
Footnote 9]
Petitioner's witnesses on the motion were the Clerk of the court
--
ex-officio a member of the Jury Commission;
Page 306 U. S. 359
the Sheriff of the Parish; the Superintendent of Schools who had
served the Parish for eleven years; and other residents of the
Parish, both white and colored. The testimony of petitioner's
witnesses (the State offered no witnesses) showed that, from 1896
to 1936, no negro had served on the Grand or Petit Juries in the
Parish; that a venire of three hundred in December, 1936, contained
the names of three negroes, one of whom was then dead, one of whom
(D. N. Dinbaut) was listed on the venire as F. N. Dinfant; the
third -- called for Petit Jury service in January, 1937 -- was the
only negro who had ever been called for jury service within the
memory of the Clerk of the court, the Sheriff, or any other
witnesses who testified; and that there were many negro citizens of
the Parish qualified under the laws of Louisiana to serve as Grand
or Petit Jurors. According to the testimony, negroes constituted 25
to 50 percent of a total Parish population of twelve to fifteen
thousand. The report of the United States Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census, for 1930 shows that the total Parish
population was fourteen thousand and seventy-eight, 49.7 percent
native white and 49.3 percent negro. In a total negro population
(ten years old and over) of five thousand two hundred and ninety,
29.9 percent were classified by the census as illiterate.
The Louisiana Supreme Court found -- contrary to the trial judge
-- that negroes had not been excluded from jury service on account
of race, but that their exclusion was the result of a
bona
fide compliance by the Jury Commission with State laws
prescribing jury qualifications. With this conclusion we cannot
agree. Louisiana law requires the Commissioners to select names for
the general venire from persons qualified to serve without
distinction as to race or color. In order to be qualified, a person
must be:
Page 306 U. S. 360
(a) A citizen of the State, over twenty-one years of age with
two years' residence in the Parish.
(b) Able to read and write the English language,
(c) Not charged with any offense or convicted of a felony,
(d) Of well known good character and standing in the community.
[
Footnote 10]
The fact that approximately one-half of the Parish's population
were negroes demonstrates that there could have been no lack of
colored residents over twenty-one years of age.
It appears from the 1930 census that 70 percent of the negro
population of the Parish was literate, and the County
Superintendent of Schools testified that fully two thousand five
hundred (83 percent), of the Parish's negro population, estimated
by him at only three thousand, were able to read and write.
Petitioner's evidence established beyond question that the majority
of the negro population could read and write, and, in this respect,
were eligible under the statute for selection as jurymen.
There is no evidence on which even an inference can be based
that any appreciable number of the otherwise qualified negroes in
the Parish were disqualified for selection because of bad character
or criminal records.
We conclude that the exclusion of negroes from jury service was
not due to their failure to possess the statutory
qualifications.
The general venire box for the Parish in which petitioner was
tried was required [
Footnote
11] -- under Louisiana law -- to contain a list of three
hundred names selected by Jury Commissioners appointed by the
District Judge, and this list had to be supplemented from time to
time so as to
Page 306 U. S. 361
maintain the required three hundred names. Although Petit Jurors
are drawn from the general venire box after the names have been
well mixed, [
Footnote 12]
the law provides [
Footnote
13] that "the commission shall
select . . . (from the
general venire list) the names of twenty citizens, possessing the
qualifications of grand jurors. . . ." (Italics supplied.) The
twenty names out of which the challenged Grand Jury of twelve was
drawn actually were the first twenty names on a new list of fifty
names supplied -- on the day the Grand Jury List was selected -- by
the Jury Commission as a "supplement" to the general venire of
three hundred. Thus, if colored citizens had been named on the
general venire, they apparently were not considered, because the
Commission went no further than the first twenty names on the
supplemental list, which itself contained no names of negroes.
Furthermore, the uncontradicted evidence on the motion to quash
showed that no negro had ever been selected for Grand Jury service
in the Parish within the memory of any of the witnesses who
testified on that point.
The testimony introduced by petitioner on his motion to quash
created a strong
prima facie showing that negroes had been
systematically excluded -- because of race -- from the Grand Jury
and the venire from which it was selected. Such an exclusion is a
denial of equal protection of the laws, contrary to the Federal
Constitution -- the supreme law of the land. [
Footnote 14] "The fact that the testimony . . .
was not challenged by evidence appropriately direct cannot be
brushed aside." [
Footnote
15] Had there been evidence obtainable to contradict and
disprove the testimony offered
Page 306 U. S. 362
by petitioner, it cannot be assumed that the State would have
refrained from introducing it. The Jury Commissioners, appointed by
the District Judge, were not produced as witnesses by the State.
The trial judge, who had appointed the Commission, listening to the
evidence and aided by a familiarity with conditions in the Parish
of many years' standing, as judge, prosecutor and practicing
attorney, concluded that negroes had been excluded from jury
service because of their race, and ordered the venire quashed and
the box purged and refilled. Our examination of the evidence
convinces us that the bill of exceptions which he signed correctly
stated that petitioner
"did prove at the trial of said motion to Quash that negroes, as
persons of color, had been purposely excluded from the Grand Jury
Venire and Panel which returned said indictment against . . .
[petitioner] on account of their color and race. . . ."
Principles which forbid discrimination in the selection of Petit
Juries also govern the selection of Grand Juries.
"It is a right to which every colored man is entitled, that, in
the selection of jurors to pass upon his life, liberty, or
property, there shall be no exclusion of his race, and no
discrimination against them because of their color. [
Footnote 16]"
This record requires the holding that the court below was in
error both in affirming the conviction of petitioner and in failing
to hold that the indictment against him should have been quashed.
The cause is reversed and remanded to the Supreme Court of
Louisiana.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
189 La. 764, 180 So. 630.
[
Footnote 2]
305 U.S. 586.
[
Footnote 3]
Under Louisiana practice, the District Judge orders the Jury
Commission to select three hundred qualified jurors in a given
Parish, who compose the general venire list, to be kept complete
and supplemented from time to time. These names are placed in the
"General Venire Box." From the general venire list, the Commission
selects twenty persons qualified as grand jurors, to serve six
months, who compose the "List of Grand Jurors." The Judge selects a
foreman from the "List of Grand Jurors," and the sheriff draws
eleven more who, with the foreman, constitute the Grand Jury Panel.
After selection of the "List of Grand Jurors," the Commission draws
thirty names from the "General Venire Box" to serve as Petit
Jurors, who are designated a "List of Jurors," and this "List of
Jurors" is kept in the "Jury Box." Louisiana Code of Criminal
Procedure (Dart, 1932) Title 18, c. 2.
[
Footnote 4]
Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.
S. 303,
100 U. S.
308-309;
Carter v. Texas, 177 U.
S. 442,
177 U. S. 447;
Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316,
200 U. S.
319.
[
Footnote 5]
U.S.C. Title 8, § 44.
[
Footnote 6]
Cf. Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.
S. 587,
294 U. S. 589;
Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370,
103 U. S. 397;
Carter v. Texas, supra, at
177 U. S. 447;
Hale v. Kentucky, 303 U. S. 613,
303 U. S.
616.
[
Footnote 7]
Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587,
294 U. S.
590.
[
Footnote 8]
Cf. Strauder v. West Virginia, supra, 100 U. S.
308-309.
[
Footnote 9]
^9
Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313,
100 U. S.
319.
[
Footnote 10]
Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure,
supra, Title 18,
c. 1, art. 172.
[
Footnote 11]
See note 3
supra.
[
Footnote 12]
Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure,
supra, Title 18,
c. 2, Art. 181.
[
Footnote 13]
Id., Art. 180.
[
Footnote 14]
Neal v. Delaware, supra, 103 U. S. 397;
Norris v. Alabama, supra, 294 U. S. 591;
Hale v. Kentucky, supra, 303 U. S.
616.
[
Footnote 15]
Norris v. Alabama, supra, 294 U. S.
594-595.
[
Footnote 16]
Virginia v. Rives, supra, 100 U. S.
322-323.