by John Marshall Harlan

“ We repeat what was said in that case, that while a colored citizen, party to a trial involving his life, liberty, or property, cannot claim, as matter of right, that his race shall have a representation on the jury, and while a mixed jury, in a particular case, is not, within the meaning of the constitution, always or absolutely necessary to the equal protection of the laws, it is a right to which he is entitled 'that in the selection of jurors to pass upon his life, liberty, or property, there shall be no exclusion of his race, and no discrimination against them, because of their color. ”

“ Whether the grand jurors who found the indictment and the petit jurors who tried the appellant were or were not selected in conformity with the laws of New York- which laws, we have seen, are not obnoxious to the objection that they discriminate against citizens of the African ace because of their race-was a question which the trial court was entirely competent to decide, and its determination could not be reviewed by the circuit court of the United States, upon a writ of habeas corpus, without making that writ serve the purposes of a writ of error. ”

“ It is scarcely necessary to observe that the question of the power or duty of the circuit court to issue a writ of habeas corpus is not at all affected by the fact, alleged in the petition, that the appellant was ignorant, until after his conviction, of the exclusion of citizens of his race, because of their race, from the lists of grand and petit jurors. ”