Splunge v. Commonwealth

MILLIKEN, Justice.

Edward Lee Splunge was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to serve ten years in prison. The only ground urged for reversal on this appeal is that the jury panel used in his case was selected exclusively from the real estate tax rolls which, of course, did not include any citizen who did not own real estate. It is urged that by so selecting the jury panel the appellant’s constitutional rights were prejudicially affected because the negro population of Jefferson County was 13.8% of the total population while negro owners of real estate were only 9.6% of the total owners…