Patton v. State

Appellant, an adult young negro, was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of J. L. Meadows, a middle aged white man, the homicide having been in the furtherance of robbery.

In due time appellant made a motion to quash the indictment because no negro was on the grand jury panel, ' although there were qualified negro men in the county.

It has long been settled in this country that an intentional and arbitrarily systematic exclusion of negroes from grand and petit jury lists solely because of their race and color denies the equal protection of the laws to a negro charged with…