Seth Carter v. State of Texas
Decision Date | 16 April 1900 |
Docket Number | No. 193,193 |
Citation | 20 S.Ct. 687,44 L.Ed. 839,177 U.S. 442 |
Parties | SETH CARTER, Plff. in Err. , v. STATE OF TEXAS |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Wilford H. Smith and E. M. Hewlett for plaintiff in error.
Mr. T. S. Smith for defendant in error.
At November term, 1897, of the criminal district court, held at the city of Galveston, for the county of Galveston and state of Texas, the grand jury, on November 26, 1897, returned an indictment against Seth Carter for the murder on November 24, 1897, of Bertha Brantley, both being of the negro race.
The record states that at March term, 1898, when the case was called for trial, the defendant, in open court, and before he had been arraigned or had pleaded to the indictment, presented and read to the court a motion to quash the indictment.
The motion to quash was signed and sworn to by the defendant, and was in these words:
The record further shows that the court overruled the motion, and to that ruling the defendant excepted in open court; that the defendant was then arraigned and pleaded not guilty, and was tried and convicted by a jury, and adjudged guilty, by the court, of murder in the first degree; and that a bill of exceptions was tendered by him, and was by the presiding judge approved, allowed, and ordered to be made part of the record, which stated that, 'after reading the said motion, the defendant asked leave of the court to introduce witnesses, and offered to introduce witnesses, to prove and sustain the allegations therein made; but the court refused to hear any evidence in support of the said motion and thereupon overruled the same, without investigating into the truth or falsity of the allegations of said motion,—to which action of the court the defendant then and there excepted.'
The defendant appealed to the court of Criminal Appeals of the state of Texas (being the highest court of the state in which a decision in the case could be had (which affirmed the judgment, and denied a motion for a rehearing. The opinions delivered by that court upon affirming the judgment, and upon denying the motion for a rehearing, are set out in the record, and are reported in 39 Tex. Crim. Rep. 345, 46 S. W. 236, 48 S. W. 508. The defendant sued out this writ of error.
The Code of Criminal Procedure of the state of Texas contains the following provisions:
Art. 559. A motion to set aside an indictment'
The court of criminal appeals, in its first opinion affirming the judgment of the trial court, disposed of the objection to the grand jury by holding that, by the very terms of article 523, 'the fact that people of African descent were not drawn by the commissioners to serve as jurors upon the grand jury is not a ground for setting aside an indictment;' and that the appellant had not undertaken to bring himself within the purview of article 397, as to which the court said: 39 Tex. Crim. Rep. 348, 349, 46 S. W. 237.
In the opinion delivered on denying the motion for a rehearing, the court substantially abandoned as untenable the positions taken in its first opinion; and admitted that 'in this particular case no opportunity was afforded appellant to challenge the array, because the grand jury which returned the bill against him had been impaneled prior to the commission of this offense,' and consequently that a motion to quash the indictment, made after his...
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