Lewis v. State

OPINION

CANNON, Justice.

A jury rejected appellant’s plea of not guilty to a murder charge and sentenced him to 45 years confinement. Appellant challenges his conviction on the grounds that the trial court erred in failing to discharge a jury panel from which all black veniremen were purposefully excluded, and in failing to grant appellant’s motion for instructed verdict. We reverse and remand.

Appellant, a black man, was charged with the death of Wilbert Lavoid Perry, also a black man. There were seven black persons in the venire of forty, from which appellant’s jury was selected. Each side was…