Commonwealth v. Wright
Court of Appeals of Kentucky
Case 4 — INDICTMENT APPEAL FROM MARION CIRCUIT COURT. 1. There may be, and is, a reason for complaint upon the part of a negro-that his race is denied the right to form a part of the grand jury;, but a white man has none. He is denied no right, and the 14th amendment of the constitution of the United States gave no right to the white man that he had not before its adoption. In the case of Johnson v. The Commonwealth (Ky.
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Case 4 — INDICTMENT APPEAL FROM MARION CIRCUIT COURT. 1. There may be, and is, a reason for complaint upon the part of a negro-that his race is denied the right to form a part of the grand jury;, but a white man has none. He is denied no right, and the 14th amendment of the constitution of the United States gave no right to the white man that he had not before its adoption. In the case of Johnson v. The Commonwealth (Ky. Rep.) this court dismissed the indictment upon the sole ground that the appellant was a negro; hut no right nor privilege is denied to the appellee, who is a white man. 1.…
1Opinion of the CourtChief Justice Cofer
In Johnson v. Commonwealth we held, in pursuance of authoritative decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, that a state law which excluded negroes from service on grand and traverse juries would, if enforced, deprive colored persons of the equal prdfection of the law, and that such statute was therefore unconstitutional. We are now called upon to decide whether that statute deprives white persons of the equal protection of the law. In other words, whether a white person indicted by a grand jury composed wholly of persons of the white race, can complain because negroes were…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Marshall v. DonovanCourt of Appeals of Kentucky · 1874
3Cited by21 opinions
- State ex rel. Wiles v. WilliamsSupreme Court of Missouri · 1910
- Burnside v. Lincoln County CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky · 1887
- A. F. Estabrook Co. v. Industrial Accident CommissionCalifornia Supreme Court · 1918
- Commonwealth v. GoldburgCourt of Appeals of Kentucky · 1915
- McKinney v. StateWyoming Supreme Court · 1892
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