Beck v. Washington

Mr. Justice Black, with whom The Chief Justice concurs,

dissenting.

I dissent from the Court’s holding because I think that the failure of the Washington courts to follow their own state law by taking affirmative action to protect the petitioner Beck from being indicted by a biased and prejudiced grand jury was a denial to him of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

*559Since 1854, when Washington was a Territory, that State has had a statute comprehensively governing the use of grand juries in criminal trials which provides in part:

“Challenges to individual grand…