Court Opinion

ID: 9450230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:39:11.015291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:12.410938
License: Public Domain

JONES, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially).
Systematic inclusion of Negroes on a jury, as well as systematic exclusion, is in violation of the due process clause or the equal protection clause, or both. The representation of the respective races on juries must not be proportional, but too few of one race or too many of the other may be evidence of discrimination. The basis of selection cannot consciously take color into account yet, as Judge Rives so aptly says, that in the general venire list, it may be that “the jury commissioners have an affirmative duty to include qualified Negroes in that list.” Thus it seems that perhaps Negroes must be included in the general venire list, although it will be assumed that this is not to be done purposefully lest the Constitution be infringed.
The systematic inclusion of Negroes on the grand jury which indicted Collins rendered the indictment and all subsequent proceedings invalid. No difficulty is anticipated in the selection of a grand jury to indict and a petit jury to try the appellant in compliance with the principles which the courts have announced.