State v. Cooper
| Decision Date | 10 January 1934 |
| Docket Number | 545. |
| Citation | 172 S.E. 199,205 N.C. 657 |
| Parties | STATE v. COOPER. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Durham County; Small, Judge.
Theodore Cooper was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.
No error; judgment affirmed.
The defendant was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree on an indictment which was returned by the grand jury at May term, 1933, of the superior court of Durham county.
From judgment that he suffer death as prescribed by law (C. S. § 4200), by means of electrocution (C. S. § 4657), the defendant appealed to the Supreme Court.
Philip A. Escoffery, of Durham, for the appellant.
Dennis G. Brummitt, Atty. Gen., and A. A. F. Seawell and T. W Bruton, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.
Moses N. Amis, of Raleigh, amicus curiæ.
The defendant in this action is a negro. The trial jury by which he was convicted of murder in the first degree was composed exclusively, of white men. The indictment on which he was arraigned was returned by a grand jury, which was also composed, exclusively, of white men. The jurors who composed both the trial jury and the grand jury were drawn from the jury box as provided by statute, C. S. § 2314. They were drawn, summoned, sworn, and impaneled as provided by the laws of this state. There was no contention by the defendant at the trial in the superior court, nor is there such contention by him in this court, that any of the jurors who served in either the trial jury or the grand jury was not duly and legally qualified to serve as a juror on either the trial or the grand jury. At the trial in the superior court, the defendant contended that the indictment should be quashed because persons of his race and color, who were qualified to serve as jurors, were excluded from the jury list of Durham county, as prepared by the board of commissioners of said county, solely because of their race and color, and that by such exclusion the defendant was deprived of a right guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the United States. This contention was not sustained by the trial court, which denied defendant's motion that the indictment be quashed. Defendant excepted to such denial, and on his appeal to this court assigns same as error.
Waiving irregularities in the record and defects in the statement of the case on appeal, as certified to this court, we have considered the only assignment of...
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