Spotsylvania Court House

“ When, however, the civil business transacted in the new court house should need all of the court rooms, the city would probably feel the need of a separate criminal court building in some other part of the borough. It is unlikely that the county court will continue both its civil and criminal terms indefinitely. The tendency in all large cities is to separate civil and criminal trials both as to judges and location.
The new court house in this location would be near the Hall of Records, a comparatively new, sound and dignified building. ”

“ Usually built in a central location, with more regard for accessibility from all corners of the county than for proximity to established centers of commerce, the courthouse came to be a unique complex of buildings related to the work of the court. In time, most of these clusters of buildings grew into towns or cities, but throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many places shown on Virginia maps as "Court House" consisted literally of a county courthouse and its related structures standing alone beside a crossroads. ”

“ When we observe the importance which that constitution attaches to the independence of judges, we are the less inclined to suppose that it can have intended to leave these constitutional questions to tribunals where this independence may not exist, in all cases where a State shall prosecute an individual who claims the protection of an act of Congress. These prosecutions may take place even without a legislative act. A person making a seizure under an act of Congress, may be indicted as a trespasser, if force has been employed, and of this a jury may judge. ”

“ We agree with the Commonwealth that mere disparity of number in the racial make-up of the jury, though relevant, is inadequate to establish a prima facie case. The ultimate composition of the jury is affected not only by the prosecutor's use of peremptories, but by the defendant's use of such, by challenges for cause (more acute in capital cases because of the Witherspoon inquiry) , and by jurors' inability to serve for personal reasons. The Commonwealth cites at least one instance where the appellant removed a black juror already passed as acceptable by the Commonwealth ”

“ It was no 'trial at common law.' The execution of a judgment was what was in question. The sixth article of the bill of rights of Pennsylvania says nothing more than this: 'trial by jury shall be as heretofore, and the right remain inviolate. Was it ever the practice to have trials after judgment? Were juries ever used in such cases before? An inquest to ascertain whether the rents and profits will pay in seven years, is not a jury, in the sense of this article. It owes its existence to an act of assembly, which the legislature may at any time repeal or alter ”

“ But when the prosecutor in a county, in case after case, whatever the circumstances, whatever the crime and whoever the defendant or the victim may be, is responsible for the removal of Negroes who have been selected as qualified jurors by the jury commissioners and who have survived challenges for cause, with the result that no Negroes ever serve on petit juries, the Fourteenth Amendment claim takes on added significance. ”

“ Williams, who is serving a term of life imprisonment in Pennsylvania for first-degree murder, argues that his right to an impartial jury was abridged because the state courts refused in post-trial proceedings to admit certain evidence of racial bias on the part of members of the jury. ”

“ It was not until they had attained a certain population that power was given them to organize a legislature by vote of the people. In all these cases, as well as in territories subsequently organized west of the Mississippi, Congress thought it necessary either to extend to Constitution and laws of the United States over them, or to declare that the inhabitants should be entitled to enjoy the right of trial by jury, of bail, and of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, as well as other privileges of the bill of rights. ”

“ As to partial legislation generally, there can be no reason for making a remedy larger than the mischief, and the legislature are the exclusive judges of the extent of any mischief that requires legislative aid. Whether an act should comprehend one case or a thousand depends solely on the pleasure of those, from whom alone the act is to proceed.
Finally, it is supposed, that these acts violate those clauses of the Pennsylvania bill of rights which prohibit unreasonable seizures, and the taking of property, without the judgment of peers, or the law of the land. ”

“ But in this instance, the state of Georgia has surrendered her right to control the pleadings to Congress, who have forbidden the plea here urged. The law of Congress is, therefore, the law of the place where the suit is instituted.
If all the Courts of the United States are bound to consider a judgment in one state as conclusive in every other; if before all Courts of justice in the Union such a judgment is a domestic judgment, and nothing will be heard against it which goes to divest it of that character; surely an executor or administrator will not be permitted to degrade it. ”

“ We also note our agreement with the Commonwealth's argument that the replacement of the first juror chosen, a black woman, with an alternate, a white man, was entirely beyond the Commonwealth's control, and the resulting disparity in numbers of blacks and whites on the jury is no basis for an inference of purposeful discrimination. Finally, we have examined the prosecutor's questions and comments during voir dire, along with those of the appellant and his counsel, and find not a trace of support for an inference that the use of peremptories was racially motivated. ”

“ The ultimate question is not whether Congress has changed a common-law rule, but whether, in reason, an absolute disqualification of governmental employees to serve as jurors in criminal cases is essential to the impartiality of the jury. The government stresses the factual situation in the District of Columbia before the enactment of the statute before us. Respondent replies that a large proportion of governmental employees are in any event disqualified because of legal residence elsewhere. ”

“ If any question was made at the trial as to the loss of the right to challenge twenty jurors on each indictment, the only side of it that would be open here, would be again the question of constitutional power. That Pennsylvania could limit the challenges on each indictment to ten does not admit doubt. ”

“ The question in this case then is whether the constitutional guarantee of a trial by "jury" necessarily requires trial by exactly 12 persons, rather than some lesser number—in this case six. We hold that the 12-man panel is not a necessary ingredient of "trial by jury," and that respondent's refusal to impanel more than the six members provided for by Florida law did not violate petitioner's Sixth Amendment rights as applied to the States through the Fourteenth. ”

“ In his motion petitioner openly declared his intent to claim an alibi, but objected to the further disclosure requirements on the ground that the rule "compels the Defendant in a criminal case to be a witness against himself" in violation of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. [2] The motion was denied. Petitioner also filed a pretrial motion to impanel a 12-man jury instead of the six- [p80] man jury provided by Florida law in all but capital cases. [3] That motion too was denied. Petitioner was convicted as charged and was sentenced to life imprisonment. ”

“ It is upon the ground that the impediment to the full protection of the laws exists by force of an express statute that the petition for removal is founded.
It is a conceded fact that a colored man has never been placed on any jury list in Delaware, and it is no answer to his demand for that right to say that he is permitted to testify and vote. ”

“ But the best evidence of the vitality of federalism is today's decision in Williams. The merits or demerits of the jury system can, of course, be debated and those States that have diluted the common-law requirements evince a conclusion that the protection as known at common law is not necessary for a fair trial, or is only such marginal assurance of a fair trial that the inconvenience of assembling 12 individuals outweighs other gains in the administration of justice achieved by using only six individuals (or none at all as was the case in New York City) . ”

“ While Virginia has not adopted procedures for securing representation that are as far reaching and effective as those available in other States, no prisoner on death row in Virginia has been unable to obtain counsel to represent him in postconviction proceedings, and Virginia's prison system is staffed with institutional lawyers to assist in preparing petitions for postconviction relief. ”

“ In Strauder, the removal petition of a Negro indicted for murder pointed to a West Virginia statute that permitted only white male persons to serve on a grand or petit jury. Since Negroes were excluded from jury service pursuant to that statute, the defendant claimed that the 'probabilities' were great that he would suffer a denial of his right to the 'full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings in the State of West Virginia. ”

“ Concluding, therefore, that the statute of West Virginia, discriminating in the selection of jurors, as it does, against negroes because of their color, amounts to a denial of the equal protection of the laws to a colored man when he is put upon trial for an alleged offence against the State, it remains only to be considered whether the power of Congress to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment by appropriate legislation is sufficient to justify the enactment of sect. ”

“ Just as it is not violative of due process for a State to take private property for public use and leave to a later stage the constitutional vindication of the right to compensation, it does not seem to me that it would be violative of due process to allow the judge-grand juror of Michigan to find criminal contempt for conduct in his proceedings without the familiar elements of an open trial, provided that the State furnishes the accused a public tribunal before which he has full opportunity to be quit of the finding. ”

“ The majority suggests that (1) the peremptory challenge system is "venerable" and essential to jury impartiality, ante, at 481-482; (2) limitations on a prosecutor's power peremptorily to challenge jurors on any basis, including race, would effectively destroy that system, ante, at 483-485; and (3) the Sixth Amendment is therefore not implicated by racially motivated peremptory exclusions, ante, at 483, 487. Each step in the majority's logic is plainly fallacious. ”

“ Virginia death row inmates brought a civil rights suit against various officials of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The prisoners claimed, based on several theories, that the Constitution required that they be provided with counsel at the Commonwealth's expense for the purpose of pursuing collateral proceedings related to their convictions and sentences. The courts below ruled that appointment of counsel upon request was necessary for the prisoners to enjoy their constitutional right to access to the courts in pursuit of state habeas corpus relief. ”

“ The Negroes of the community abandoned their homes and fled.
Every detail of these passion-arousing events was reported by the press under such headlines as, 'Night Riders Burn Lake Negro Homes' and 'Flames From Negro Homes Light Night Sky in Lake County.' These and many other articles were highly prejudicial, including a cartoon published at the time of the grand jury, picturing four electric chairs and headed, 'No Compromise-Supreme Penalty.'
Counsel for defendants made two motions, one to defer the trial until the passion had died out and the other for a change of venue. These were denied. ”

“ It was objected yesterday, that there was no provision for a jury from the vicinage. If it could have been done with safety, it would [p94] not have been opposed. It might so happen that a trial would be impracticable in the county. Suppose a rebellion in a whole district, would it not be impossible to get a jury? The trial by jury is held as sacred in England as in America. ”

“ This points up the second flaw in the appellant's reasoning, reliance on the right to allocution as developed at common law. Whatever force the common law of allocution has with respect to other criminal cases, the General Assembly has abrogated that law and replaced it with statutory law devised specifically for first degree murder cases. The legislature has provided that a sentencing hearing is required at which evidence may be presented to the jury, or the judge as the case may be. ”

“ Any failure of the prosecutor to offer such a justification on the record, petitioner's counsel argued, "would evidence the fact that he is using [his peremptory challenges] in a discriminatory manner." App. 10.
The prosecution opposed the motion, denying that petitioner could prove that prosecutors in previous cases had challenged black jurors impermissibly. " [I] n practically every trial we have in this county," the prosecutor observed, "there are always blacks on trial juries, and an all white jury is rare in any county." ”