Strauder v. West Virginia

Infobox SCOTUS case
Litigants=Strauder v. West Virginia
ArgueDateA=October 20
ArgueDateB=21
ArgueYear=1879
DecideDate=March 1
DecideYear=1879
FullName=Strauder v. West Virginia
USVol=100
USPage=303
Citation=
Prior=
Subsequent=
Holding=Exclusion of individuals from juries solely because of their race is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
SCOTUS=1877-1880
Majority=Strong
JoinMajority=Waite, Swayne, Miller, Bradley, Hunt, Harlan
Concurrence=
JoinConcurrence=
Dissent=Field
JoinDissent=Clifford
LawsApplied=

"Strauder v. West Virginia", ussc|100|303|1880, was a United States Supreme Court case about racial discrimination.

At the time, West Virginia excluded African-Americans from juries. Strauder was an African-American man who, at trial, had been convicted of murder—convicted, by an all-white jury. Strauder appealed his conviction, contending that West Virginia's exclusionary policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The majority, speaking through Justice William Strong, held that exclusion of blacks from juries for no other reason than their race did indeed violate the Equal Protection Clause, since the very purpose of the Clause was "to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons, and to give to that race the protection of the general government, in that enjoyment, whenever it should be denied by the States." The Court did not say that exclusion of blacks from the jury violated the rights of potential jury members; rather, such exclusion violated the rights of a black criminal defendant, since juries would be "drawn from a panel from which the State has expressly excluded every man of [a defendant's] race."

While a victory for the rights of black defendants and an important early civil rights case, "Strauder v. West Virginia" upheld the right of states to bar women from juries, holding that a state "may confine the selection to males, to freeholders, to citizens, to persons within certain ages, or to persons having educational qualifications. We do not believe the Fourteenth Amendment was ever intended to prohibit this." The precedent set by "Strauder" has continued to influence rulings in cases as late as 1961 in "Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U.S. 57 (1961)"

ee also

* "Batson v. Kentucky"

Further reading

*cite journal |last=De Cani |first=John S. |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1974 |month= |title=Statistical Evidence in Jury Discrimination Cases |journal=Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology |volume=65 |issue=2 |pages=234–238 |doi=10.2307/1142542 |url= |accessdate= |quote=
*cite journal |last=Gillespie |first=J. R. |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1950 |month= |title=The Constitution and the All-White Jury |journal=Kentucky Law Journal |volume=39 |issue= |pages=65 |issn=0023026X |url= |accessdate= |quote=
*cite journal |last=Schmidt |first=Benno C., Jr. |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1983 |month= |title=Juries, Jurisdiction, and Race Discrimination: The Lost Promise of "Strauder v. West Virginia" |journal=Texas Law Review |volume=61 |issue=8 |pages=1401 |issn=00404411 |url=http://www.utexas.edu/law/journals/tlr/abstracts/Volume%2061/Schmidt.htm |accessdate= |quote=

External links

* [http://www.justia.us/us/100/303/case.html Full text of the decision & case resources from Justia & Northwestern-Oyez]