State v. Williams

WASSERSTROM, Judge.

The indictment charged defendant with first degree murder, but the jury found him guilty of only manslaughter and fixed his punishment at 10 years imprisonment. Defendant appeals on the following sole ground:

“The court erred in refusing defendant’s request that the jury be stricken and a new jury be drawn from a different ve-nire because of total exclusion of black people by use of preemptory [sic] strikes by the prosecutor.”

The facts bearing upon this issue are that the venire of 34 persons contained six blacks. The prosecution used six of its ten peremptory challenges to…