Arnold v. North Carolina

• Decision Date: 06 April 1964
• Docket Number: No. 572,572
• Citation: 84 S.Ct. 1032,12 L.Ed.2d 77,376 U.S. 773
• Parties: Jesse James ARNOLD and George Dixon, Petitioners, v. NORTH CAROLINA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

376 U.S. 773

84 S.Ct. 1032

12 L.Ed.2d 77

Jesse James ARNOLD and George Dixon, Petitioners,

v NORTH CAROLINA.

No. 572.

Argued March 26, 1964.

Decided April 6, 1964.

J. Harvey Turner and Fred W. Harrison, Kinston, N.C., for petitioners.

Ralph Moody, Raleigh, N.C., for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

The petitioners, Arnold and Dixon, were found guilty of m rder by a jury and their convictions were affirmed, the Supreme Court of North Carolina concluding that they had not made out a case of systematic exclusion of Negroes from the grand jury which returned the indictment.258 N.C. 563, 129 S.E.2d 229.In support of their motion to quash the indictment because of consistent exclusion of Negroes from grand jury service, petitioners both Negroes, offered testimony of the county tax supervisor showing that the tax records of the county, on which Negro and white persons are listed separately and from which the names of jurors are derived, revealed 12,250 white persons and 4,819 Negroes in the county, with 5,583 white men and 2,499 Negro men listed for poll tax.In addition, the clerk of the trial court testified that while there have been as many as four or five Negroes upon the regular jury panel from which grand jurors have been chosen, in his 24 years as clerk he could remember only one Negro serving on a ground jury, another having been selected but excused.This evidence was uncontradicted, the State cross-examining the witnesses but offering no evidence.

The judgment below must be reversed.The 'testimony in itself made out a prima facie case of the denial of the equal protection which the Constitution guarantees.'Norris...