Norris v. Alabama

Norris v. Alabama
Argued February 15, 18, 1935
Decided April 1, 1935
Full case nameNorris v. Alabama
Citations294 U.S. 587 (more)
55 S. Ct. 579; 79 L. Ed. 1074
Holding
Exclusion of blacks from a grand jury by which an African-American is indicted, or from the petit jury by which he is tried for the offense, resulting from systematic and arbitrary exclusion of blacks from the jury lists solely because of their race or color, is a denial of the equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Charles E. Hughes
Associate Justices
Willis Van Devanter · James C. McReynolds
Louis Brandeis · George Sutherland
Pierce Butler · Harlan F. Stone
Owen Roberts · Benjamin N. Cardozo
Case opinion
MajorityHughes, joined by Van Devanter, Brandeis, Sutherland, Butler, Stone, Roberts, Cardozo
McReynolds took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 (1935), was one of the cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that arose out of the trial of the Scottsboro Boys, who were nine African-American teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931. The Scottsboro trial jury had no African-American members. Several cases were brought to the Supreme Court to debate the constitutionality of all-white juries.[1] Norris v. Alabama centered around Clarence Norris, one of the Scottsboro Boys, and his claim that the jury selection had systematically excluded black members due to racial prejudice.[2]

  1. ^ "The Trials of "The Scottsboro Boys": An Account". famous-trials.com. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  2. ^ "Norris v. Alabama - Oxford Reference". Retrieved October 23, 2018.