Walter Lee Johnson v. Steve W. Puckett

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge:

A black state prisoner, indicted for murder in 1979 and thereafter convicted, contends that he was denied equal protection of the law because for a twenty year period up to and including his indictment, 42 grand jury foremen, all of them white, had been appointed by the circuit judges of the county in which he was indicted, although the population of the county was 43% black. He alleges that the white foreman of the grand jury that indicted him was therefore selected in a racially discriminatory manner. The district court nonetheless denied his petition for a…