Gilchrist v. Commonwealth

CULLEN, Commissioner.

Upon a trial in the Union Circuit Court, Berthenia Gilchrist, a Negro, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her main contention, on appeal to this Court, is that the lower court should have sustained her motion to quash the indictment, based on proof of systematic exclusion of Negroes from appointment as jury commissioners, and from selection as grand and petit jurors, in Union County.

On a former trial for the same offense, appellant was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. That judgment was reversed because there…