Excerpts from the majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Norris v. State of Alabama, 1935

On February 15, 1935, the United States Supreme Court heard appeals for both the Haywood  Patterson and Clarence Norris cases.  Their lawyer argued that the convictions should be overturned because Alabama excluded Blacks from its jury rolls in violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution.  The lawyers were able to prove that names of African Americans that appeared on the jury rolls introduced in the Alabama lower court were forged sometime after the start of Patterson’s trial. The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the convictions of Norris and Patterson, and in Norris vs. Alabama, unequivocally held that the Alabama system of jury selection was unconstitutional.

NORRIS v. ALABAMA

No. 534

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

294 U.S. 587; 55 S. Ct. 579

February 15, 18, 1935, Argued

April 1, 1935, Decided

Third. The evidence on the motion to quash the trial venire. The population of Morgan County, where the trial was had, was larger than that of Jackson County, and the proportion of negroes was much greater. The total population of Morgan County in 1930 was 46,176, and of this number 8,311 were negroes. 

Within the memory of witnesses, long resident there, no negro had ever served on a jury in that county or had been called for such service. Some of these witnesses were over fifty years of age and had always lived in Morgan County. Their testimony was not contradicted. A clerk of the circuit court, who had resided in the county for thirty years, and who had been in office for over four years, testified that during his official term approximately 2500 persons had been called for jury service and that not one of them was a negro; that he did not recall “ever seeing any single person of the colored race serve on any jury in Morgan County.” 

There was abundant evidence that there were a large number of negroes in the county who were qualified for jury service. Men of intelligence, some of whom were college graduates, testified to long lists (said to contain nearly 200 names) of such qualified negroes, including many business men, owners of real property and householders. When defendant’s counsel proposed to call many additional witnesses in order to adduce further proof of qualifications of negroes for jury service, the trial judge limited the testimony, holding that the evidence was cumulative. 

We find no warrant for a conclusion that the names of any of the negroes as to whom this testimony was given, or of any other negroes, were placed on the jury rolls. No such names were identified. The evidence that for many years no negro had been called for jury service itself tended to show the absence of the names of negroes from the jury rolls, and the State made no effort to prove their presence. The trial judge limited the defendant’s proof “to the present year, the present jury roll.” The sheriff of the county, called as a witness for defendants, scanned the jury roll and after “looking over every single name on that jury roll, from A to Z,” was unable to point out “any single negro on it.” 

For this long-continued, unvarying, and wholesale exclusion of negroes from jury service we find no justification consistent with the constitutional mandate We have carefully examined the testimony of the jury commissioners upon which the state court based its decision. One of these commissioners testified in person and the other two submitted brief affidavits. By the state act (Gen. Acts, Ala., 1931, No. 47, p. 55), in force at the time the jury roll in question was made up, the clerk of the jury board was required to obtain the names of all male citizens of the county over twenty-one and under sixty-five years of age, and their occupation, place of residence and place of business. (Id., p. 58, § 11.) The qualifications of those who were to be placed on the jury roll were the same as those prescribed by the earlier statute which we have already quoted. (Id., p. 59, § 14.) The member of the jury board, who testified orally, said that a list was made up which included the names of all male citizens of suitable age; that black residents were not excluded from this general list; that in compiling the jury roll he did not consider race or color; that no one was excluded for that reason; and that he had placed on the jury roll the  names of persons possessing the qualifications under the statute. The affidavits of the other members of the board contained general statements to the same effect. 

We think that this evidence failed to rebut the strong prima facie case which defendant had made. That showing as to the long-continued exclusion of negroes from jury service, and as to the many negroes qualified for that service, could not be met by mere generalities. If, in the presence of such testimony as defendant adduced, the mere general assertions by officials of their performance of duty were to be accepted as an adequate justification for the complete exclusion of negroes from jury service, the constitutional provision—adopted with special reference to their protection—would be but a vain and illusory requirement. The general attitude of the jury commissioner is shown by the following extract from his testimony: “I do not know of any negro in Morgan County over twenty-one and under sixty-five who is generally reputed to be honest and intelligent and who is esteemed in the community for his integrity, good character  and sound judgment, who is not an habitual drunkard, who isn’t afflicted with a permanent disease or physical weakness which would render him unfit to discharge the duties of a juror, and who can read English, and who has never been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude.” In the light of the testimony given by defendant’s witnesses, we find it impossible to accept such a sweeping characterization of the lack of qualifications of negroes in Morgan County. It is so sweeping, and so contrary to the evidence as to the many qualified negroes, that it destroys the intended effect of the commissioner’s testimony. 

In Neal v. Delaware, supra decided over fifty years ago, this Court observed that it was a “violent presumption,” in which the state court had there indulged, that the uniform exclusion of negroes from juries, during a period of many years, was solely because, in the judgment of the officers, charged with the selection of grand and petit jurors, fairly exercised, “the black race in Delaware were utterly disqualified by want of intelligence, experience, or moral integrity, to sit on juries.” Such a presumption at the present time would be no less violent with respect to the exclusion of the negroes of Morgan County. And, upon the proof contained in the record now before us, a conclusion that their continuous and total exclusion from juries was because there were none possessing the requisite qualifications, cannot be sustained. 

We are concerned only with the federal question which we have discussed, and in view of the denial of the federal right suitably asserted, the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. 

Reversed.

Source: 294 U.S. 587, 1935 available online at     www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_norus.html. (Document 5.10.14)