Court Opinion

ID: 9681181
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:45:26.953883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:32.559436
License: Public Domain

WOODLEY, Judge,
Concurring
I approve the opinion prepared by Commissioner Dice, but because a constitutional question affecting the validity of the conviction is raised, I would add the following:
Prior to the selection of the jury commission and the empaneling of the grand jury which returned the indictment herein there had been systematic exclusion of Negroes in the selection of grand jurors in Van Zandt County under the holdings of the Supreme Court of the United States in Cassell v. Texas, 94 L.Ed. 839; Hill v. Texas, 86 L. Ed. 1559; and other cases, including the recent decision of this Court in Stoker v. State, 169 Tex. Cr. Rep. 59, 331 S.W. 2d 310.
When the Stoker case was decided an indictment was pending in Van Zandt County against appellant, a Negro, charging him with rape.
For the purpose of complying with the mandate in Stoker v. State, and other cases, and deeming it necessary, District Judge A. A. Dawson appointed a jury commission in Van Zandt County, one of the counties of his district. One of the jury commissioners appointed was a Negro.
The jury commission in turn selected a grand jury panel which included some Negroes who served on the grand jury which returned the indictment upon which appellant was tried and convicted.
Judge Dawson testified that he told the jury commissioners “that we couldn’t any longer operate with them (Negroes) excluded from juries” and that the inclusion of some Negroes was an effort on his part, simply to carry out the mandate of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
If the inclusion of members of his own race in the selection of the grand jury which returned the indictment against appellant *559constitutes racial discrimination under Cassell v. Texas, it was not discrimination against the Negro race of which appellant may complain.
The holding of the Cassell case regarding intentional inclusion should be construed in the light of the circumstances then existing. The Supreme Court had announced a rule by which racial discrimination might be established. The court was pointing out that the intentional inclusion of a Negro for the purpose of evading the rule would not destroy the effect of long continued failure to include Negroes in the selection of jurors.
Cassell v. Texas is not authority for setting aside the indictment herein upon the ground that Negroes were intentionally included.
In Moore v. State (Ark.) 315 S.W. 2d 907, the trial judge positively instructed the jury commissioners to have Negroes on the trial jury list, and instructed the clerk, in preparing the list, to put all the Negro jurors at the top of the list in order that there might be full opportunity, if found qualified and not challenged, for them to serve on the jury. The Supreme Court of Arkansas said: “Thus the trial judge took every precaution to see that there were Negroes on the trial jury list in this case; and the record — instead of showing studied evasion — shows a deliberate attempt by the trial court in this case to fully comply with the rulings of the United States Supreme Court which condemns racial exclusion.” The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Moore v. Arkansas, 358 U.S. 946, 79 S. Ct. 356, 3 L.Ed. 2d 353.