John Brownfield v. State of South Carolina
| Decision Date | 09 March 1903 |
| Docket Number | No. 172,172 |
| Citation | 23 S.Ct. 513,189 U.S. 426,47 L.Ed. 882 |
| Parties | JOHN BROWNFIELD, Plff. in Err. , v. STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. J. L. Mitchell, W. J. Whipper and E. M. Hewlett for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. John S. Wilson and W. H. Townsend for defendant in error.
This case comes here by writ of error to the supreme court of South Carolina. The plaintiff in error has been convicted of murder, and the error alleged is that the grand jury was composed wholly of white persons, and that all negroes, although constituting four fifths of the population and of the registered voters of the county, were excluded on account of their race and color. The plaintiff in error is a negro, and he says that in this way he has been denied the equal protection of the laws and of the civil rights guaranteed to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442, 44 L. ed. 839, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 687. The case was taken to the supreme court of the state by appeal, and the judgment of the trial court was affirmed.
We have stated the error which is alleged. The trouble with the case is that we are not warranted in assuming that the allegations are true. The record contains an agreed statement called a brief, in which it appears that the defendant made a motion to quash on the grounds stated, and in which it is said that the defendant offered to introduce testimony to support these grounds. But this agreed statement is 'signed with relation to case as settled by judge.' It appears that the parties agreed that the judge before whom the case was tried should 'make a statement as to his rulings upon the motion to quash the indictment, and also as to the motion to challenge the arrays of grand and petit jurors in the case, and also as to requests to charge, and such statement shall be the agreed statement for the purposes of this appeal.' The challenge of the array referred to was upon the same grounds as the agreed statement for the purposes of this agreement the judge made a statement of the grounds on which he overruled the motion.
The foregoing language is quite inconsistent with there having been an offer to prove the allegations of the motion, as is the further fact that the record discloses no...
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