Avery v. Georgia (345 U.S. 559)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 25, 1953 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 345 U.S. 559 · 73 S. Ct. 891
- Docket
- No. 648
- Argued
- April 30, 1953
- Decided
- May 25, 1953
- Term
- October Term 1952
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Vinson
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson (wrote), Justice Minton, Justice Clark, Justice Burton, Justice Douglas
- Concurring in the judgment
- Justice Frankfurter (wrote), Justice Reed (wrote), Justice Black
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner was tried for rape in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia. He was convicted and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed after overruling petitioner’s contention that the jury which convicted him had been selected by a means repugnant to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We granted certiorari to review this claim. 345 U. S. 903. The indictment, upon which petitioner was tried, was returned by a grand jury in Walker County, Georgia. A change of venue was granted and the cause removed to Fulton County. By proper pleadings petitioner, a Negro, challenged the array of petit jurors selected to try his case; he charged that discrimination had been practiced against members of his race. Testimony was then taken, and thereafter the trial court overruled the challenge. The salient facts, developed in this hearing, are undisputed. Under Georgia law the task of organizing panels of petit jurors for criminal cases falls upon a county Board of Jury Commissioners. In discharging this responsibility the Commissioners, at stated intervals, select prospective jurors from the county tax returns. Their list is then printed; the names of white persons on this list are printed on white tickets; the names of Negroes are printed on yellow tickets. These tickets — white and yellow…
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