State v. Speller, 145
| Decision Date | 08 March 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. 145,145 |
| Citation | 231 N.C. 549,57 S.E.2d 759 |
| Parties | STATE, v. SPELLER. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Harry M. McMullan, Atty. Gen., and Hughes J. Rhodes, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Herman L. Taylor, Raleigh, and C. J. Gates, Durham, for defendant.
For the third time the defendant appeals from a conviction of rape, without any recommendation from the jury, and sentence of death as the law commands in such cases. On the prior appeals, reported in 229 N.C. 67, 47 S.E.2d 537, and 230 N.C. 345, 53 S.E.2d 294, new trials were ordered for jury defect and for failure to allow defendant sufficient time or opportunity to present his challenge to the array.
On the present hearing, all charges of discrimination, jury defect and alleged irregularities, which again constitute the defendant's principal exceptions, have been carefully investigated with ample opportunity afforded the defendant to be heard upon his challenges. At the close of the evidence on the challenges, counsel for the defendant announced 'that they desired to offer no additional evidence in support of said motion'.
The case was tried at the August Term, 1949, Bertie Superior Court, before a jury selected from a special venire drawn from Vance County at the instance of the defendant. 'Defendant's counsel suggested that the venire from which the said jury should be selected be summoned from the most remote county in the Third Judicial District, the same being Vance County'. (Judge's findings, R. p. 58.)
It was made to appear that on the first Monday in July, 1949, the Commissioners of Vance County had purged the jury list of their county and in full compliance with the law had placed the names of persons of both the white and the colored races in the jury box without discrimination of any kind. On the special venire drawn to try the instant case there appeared the names of seven Negroes, the race to which the defendant belongs. It is not the right of any party to be tried by a jury of his own race, or to have a representative of any particular race on the jury. It is his right, however, to be tried by a competent jury from which members of his race have not been unlawfully excluded. State v. Koritz, 227 N.C. 552, 43 S.E.2d 77; Ballard v. U. S., 329 U.S. 187, 67 S.Ct. 261, 91 L.Ed. 181. No such exclusion appears here. The challenge to the array was properly overruled on the findings made by the trial court, which are amply supported by the evidence and...
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Brown v. Allen Speller v. Allen Daniels v. Allen
...by the trial court. Upholding the rulings of the trial court, the Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the conviction, 231 N.C. 549, 57 S.E.2d 759. Petitioner filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina after w......
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Miller v. State
...107 U.S. 110, 1 S.Ct. 625, 27 L.Ed. 354; State of Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313, 25 L.Ed. 667; State v. Brown, supra; State v. Speller, 231 N. C. 549, 57 S.E.2d 759, and Id., 230 N.C. 345, 53 S.E.2d 294; State v. Koritz, 227 N.C. 552, 43 S.E.2d 77; State v. Sloan, 97 N.C. 499, 2 S.E. 3. A......
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Daniels v. Allen, 6330.
...reversed two consecutive judgments of the Superior Court of Bertie County in State v. Speller, 229 N.C. 67, 47 S.E.2d 537 and 231 N.C. 549, 57 S.E.2d 759, for similar defects in the constitution of the jury. It is not claimed that the evidence of discriminatory exclusion of Negroes from the......
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State v. Yoes, 659
...for the Court, in State v. Koritz, supra. To the same effect, see: State v. Wilson, supra; State v. Miller, supra; State v. Speller, 231 N.C. 549, 57 S.E.2d 759; and Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 228 U.S. 217, 90 L.Ed. A Negro, moving to quash a bill of indictment on the ground that the gr......