Brown v. Rutter

• Decision Date: 22 March 1956
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 820.
• Citation: 139 F. Supp. 679
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Kentucky
• Parties: Curlee BROWN, Plaintiff, v. Ross RUTTER, F. H. Trewolia and Floyd Jett, Jury Commissioners of McCracken County, Kentucky; and Russell Jones, Sheriff of Said County, Defendants.

139 F. Supp. 679

Curlee BROWN, Plaintiff, v. Ross RUTTER, F. H. Trewolia and Floyd Jett, Jury Commissioners of McCracken County, Kentucky; and Russell Jones, Sheriff of Said County, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 820.

United States District Court W. D. Kentucky, at Paducah.

March 22, 1956.

Joseph S. Freeland, Paducah, Ky., for plaintiff.

W. Pelham McMurry, Paducah, Ky., for defendants.

SHELBOURNE, Chief Judge.

This suit was filed February 9, 1955, by the plaintiff Curlee Brown, a member of the Negro race and a citizen and registered voter of McCracken County, Kentucky, a representative of a large class of Negroes, citizens and persons possessing all the legal qualifications for service on the grand and petit juries selected for the County.

The defendants are the three Jury Commissioners and the Sheriff of the County. The Jury Commissioners are appointed by the Judge of the McCracken Circuit and upon his order, designating the time and place, the Commissioners meet annually and select from the current voters' registration records and/or the last returned tax records of the County, the names of one thousand persons qualified for jury service. The names of the persons so selected are written upon slips of paper and placed in a drum or wheel from which the names are subsequently publicly drawn by the Judge of the Court for grand and petit jury service in the Circuit Court. No person is eligible as such juror unless his name has been selected by the Commissioners, placed in the jury wheel or drum and subsequently withdrawn therefrom by the Judge, except under certain conditions specified in the statute, there devolves upon the Sheriff the duty to select bystander jurors. No juror is or can be selected except under one of these two methods.

Claiming that the defendants are maintaining a custom established by their predecessors in office, of long standing, to systematically exclude qualified Negroes from jury service by failing to place their names in the jury wheel and to summon them as bystander jurors, solely because of their race or color, the plaintiff invokes the jurisdiction of this Court under Title 28, Section 1343, Title 8, Sections 41 and 43¹ and Title 18, Section 243, United States Code, praying an injunction against defendants and their successors in office from maintaining and enforcing the alleged custom and practice of excluding the qualified Negro citizens of the County from jury service, and mandatorily enjoin defendants to place the names of qualified Negroes in the jury wheel or drum and to summon them as bystander jurors without discrimination because of their race or color.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss which was overruled and then filed answer which, except for the allegations with respect to defendants' office status and duties, denied, either outright or because of alleged lack of knowledge, the allegations of the complaint.

From the stipulation of facts, the response to plaintiff's requests for admissions and the testimony heard at the trial, the Court makes the following —

Findings of Fact

1. The Court has jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter involved in this action.

2. Plaintiff, Curlee Brown, is a Negro, a citizen and resident of McCracken County, Kentucky, a registered voter and legally qualified for grand and petit jury service in the Circuit Court of said County.

3. From the 1950 Federal Census the population of McCracken County was 49,137 of which 5,964 were Negroes, a large number of whom are admittedly eligible and qualified for jury service should their names be placed in the drum or wheel and selected by the Commissioners or summoned as bystanders by the Sheriff.

4. The plaintiff, Curlee Brown, is a representative of this class of Negroes and is entitled to bring this action on behalf of himself and other members of the Negro population, similarly situated and qualified.

5. From January 1, 1948 to October 25, 1955, all of the persons whose names have been drawn from the jury wheel or drum of the McCracken Circuit Court and who have been thereafter summoned for jury service and appeared for service in response to the summons have been white persons with the exception of one Negro whose name was drawn and he was summoned and appeared in response to such summons in March 1952.

6. In the year 1955, the Jury Commissioners selected and placed in the jury wheel 1,000 names of persons qualified for jury service.

At the time of the trial of this case, November 1, 1955, 398 names had been withdrawn from the wheel and the persons summoned for jury service. No one so summoned was a Negro. The evidence of these facts placed the burden on the defendant, Jury Commissioners to refute the necessary conclusion of discrimination. Reece v. State of Georgia, 350 U.S. 85, 76 S.Ct. 167. Their mere assertion that they have not knowingly discriminated is not sufficient refutation.

7. The evidence with respect to the Sheriff indicates that in no instance, prior to the filing of this suit, did he summon as bystander jurors or jurors for trials in the County and Quarterly Courts, Negroes except on one occasion in 1954, when a Negro defendant on trial in a criminal action raised the question of the legality of the jury panels, both grand and petit, because of the custom and practice of exclusion of Negroes therefrom, and the Circuit Judge advised the Sheriff to include Negroes in the bystanders to be...