Court Opinion

ID: 9675532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:56:41.893847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:35.297041
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge,
dissenting.
Venireman Broadnax, a Negro, was duly drawn as a member of the venire from which the jury in this case was to be selected. He was, in all things, qualified under the Constitution and laws of this state for jury service. He was not shown to be disqualified to serve on the jury in this case.
Over appellant’s objection and at the request of the state, the trial court dismissed Broadnax from the venire list and from jury service because he was a member of the Negro race and because of the absence of facilities to house and feed a jury composed of members of both the white and Negro races.
In Rogers v. State, 163 Texas Cr. Rep. 260, 289 S.W. 2d 923, and Winfield v. State, 163, Texas Cr. Rep. 445, 293 S.W. 2d 765, by dissenting- opinions, I attempted to make it clear that, to my mind, the arbitrary refusal to call women for jury service or empanel women therefor after being called was violative of the Constitution and laws of this state and of due process under both State and Federal Constitutions. In those cases, women were discriminated against and denied the right of jury service because of their sex.
In the instant case, as has been stated, the juror was discriminated against and denied the right of jury service because he was a member of the Negro race.
If one member of the Negro race may be arbitrarily dismissed and disqualified for jury service because of his race, *213it necessarily follows that all members of the Negro race may be so treated.
It is now the settled law of this state that one accused of crime has no right to demand that the jury before or by whom he is to be tried shall be drawn and selected, fairly, from a cross section of all those who are qualified under the law to serve as jurors, without reference to any particular race, sex, nationality, or membership in established groups or classes.
It has often been said that it is a poor rule that will not work both ways. Now if an accused cannot demand that the jury be selected from those qualified for jury service without reference to sex, race, or class — as my brethren hold — then, by that same rule, the accused would have the right to demand that he be tried before a jury selected only from those who come within the same sex, race, or class of which he is a member.
Thus is demonstrated, to my mind, the utter fallacy of the rule of law which my brethren have announced.
I cannot help wondering what my brethren would hold if a member of the Negro race were to insist that only members of the Negro race be drawn for jury service, or if a woman were to insist that she is entitled to be tried by a jury composed only of women, or a white male were to insist that only white male persons compose the jury before whom he is tried. I am at a loss to understand how my brethren, under their holding here, could fail to recognize such insistence.
If the accused can complain only that members of his race, sex, or class are denied jury service, then, in order that such right to complain be preserved, the jury must be selected from those groups and none other. Only in that manner would the accused be accorded his right to prevent unjust discrimination.
My brethren justify their position, and the situation in which they have placed themselves, by saying that the accused is denied equal protection of law, as guaranteed by State and Federal Constitutions, only when he is a member of the class against which the discrimination is practiced.
The complaint which the appellant is here registering and of which Rogers and Winfield complained was not that they, as members of a certain race, sex, class, or group, had been discriminated against in the drawing of the jury, but that they *214were entitled to have a jury drawn from all those persons having the qualifications of jurors under the law, without reference to race, sex, nationality, groups, or classes to which the accuseds belong.
By Art. XVI, Sec. 19, of our State Constitution, the legislature is enjoined to “prescribe by law the qualifications of grand and petit jurors.” The only limitation there placed upon that power of the legislation was that “neither the right nor the duty to serve on grand and petit juries shall be denied or abridged by reason of sex.”
In view of that constitutional provision, I was — and am still —amazed at the holding of my brethren in the Rogers and Win-field cases, because women were there permitted to be discriminated against for jury service solely because of their sex.
To me, the fallacy of the holding here and in the Rogers and Winfield cases is thus demonstrated. My brethren have wholly misapplied the due protection clause of the Constitutions to the instant fact situation. It has no application here.
The race discrimination here practiced was not against the accused. The discrimination was against the juror. By that discrimination, appellant was denied his constitutional right of due process of law.
I respectfully dissent to the affirmance of this conviction.