Supreme Court of the United States, 1964

Arnold v. North Carolina

Supreme Court of the United States · Decided April 6, 1964 · Per Curiam

376 U.S. 773; 84 S. Ct. 1032; 12 L. Ed. 2d 77; 1964 U.S. LEXIS 1490 (United States Reports)

Counsel

J. Harvey Turner and Fred W. Harrison argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioners., Ralph Moody, Deputy Attorney General of North Carolina, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was T. W. Bruton, Attorney General of North Carolina.

Cases that cite this one

75 later published cases cite this decision. The 25 that cite it most often are listed here.

Marion Frank Crawford v. V. Lee Bounds, Warden of Central Prison (Successor to K. B. Bailey) (4th Cir. 1968)
Catherine Foster, on Behalf of Themselves and All Others Similarly Situated v. James L. Sparks, Etc. (5th Cir. 1975)
State v. Brown (N.C. 1967)
Swain v. Alabama (Supreme Court of the United States 1965)
Harris v. State of North Carolina (District Court, E.D. North Carolina 1965)
Thomas C. Ramseur v. Howard C. Beyer, Superintendent, New Jersey State Prison, Robert Del Tufo, New Jersey Attorney General (3d Cir. 1992)
Colvin v. State (Md. 1984)
Castaneda v. Partida (Supreme Court of the United States 1977)
State v. Spaulding (N.C. 1975)
Andrew Hawkins v. Town of Shaw, Mississippi (5th Cir. 1972)
Leon Hamilton v. John C. Watkins, Warden (5th Cir. 1970)
Commonwealth of Virginia v. Leah B. Morris, Hollis B. Morris, Herman Trent and Frank Brown (4th Cir. 1966)
Orzell Billingsley, Sr., C. Herbert Oliver, J. S. Phifer and Abraham Woods, Jr. v. George W. Clayton (5th Cir. 1966)
Brooks Lee Anderson v. Wilburn C. Johnson, Warden, Tennessee State Penitentiary (6th Cir. 1966)
William L. Maxwell v. Dan D. Stephens, Superintendent of Arkansas State Penitentiary (8th Cir. 1965)
State Ex Rel. Henderson v. Russell (Tenn. Crim. App. 1970)
Rose v. Mitchell (Supreme Court of the United States 1979)
John A. Hutter Et Ux. v. Bernard J. Korzen, Etc (Supreme Court of the United States 1972)
State v. Spencer (N.C. 1970)
Brooks v. State (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1968)
State v. Yoes (N.C. 1967)
Sandy Lee McNeil v. State of North Carolina and Major William C. Brown (4th Cir. 1966)
Cervantes Salazar v. Dretke (District Court, W.D. Texas 2005)
Rideau v. Whitley (5th Cir. 2000)
Harvey v. State (Tenn. Crim. App. 1987)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion

Per Curiam.

The petitioners, Arnold and Dixon, were found guilty of murder 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, *774 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 grand 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 jade case of the denial of the equal protection which the Constitution guarantees.” Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 591. The situation here is quite like that in Eubanks v. Louisiana, 356 U. S. 584, 586, where systematic exclusion of Negroes from grand jury duty was found. In that case:

“Although Negroes comprise about one-third of the population of the parish, the uncontradicted testimony of various witnesses established that only one Negro had been picked for grand jury duty within memory. . . . From 1936, when the Commission first began to include Negroes in the pool of potential jurors, until 1954, when petitioner was indicted, 36 grand juries were selected in the parish. Six or more Negroes were included in each list submitted to the local judges. Yet out of the 432 jurors selected only the single Negro was chosen.”

See also Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S, 475.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.