Legal Defense Fund Asks Supreme Court to Assure Unbiased Jury Selection
Press Release
March 25, 1964
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Press Releases, Volume 1. Legal Defense Fund Asks Supreme Court to Assure Unbiased Jury Selection, 1964. 39b4c1d3-b492-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/3ad99397-5dc1-46f5-be25-621af2c9e85e/legal-defense-fund-asks-supreme-court-to-assure-unbiased-jury-selection. Accessed April 22, 2025.
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UY) PRESS RELEASE *.
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND
10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE + NEW YORK, N. Y. 10019 © JUdson 6-8397
DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS JACK GREENBERG CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY
President Director-Counsel Associate Counsel
Se
LEGAL DEFENSE FUND ASKS
SUPREME COURT TO ASSURE
UNBIASED JURY SELECTICN
Faech 25, 1964
ents ps aa WASHINGTON, D.C.--Attorneys of the NAACP Legal’ Defense Fund today.
asked the U.S, Supreme Court to assure the right f southern Négroes
to be tried before juries from which Negroes have not been excluded.
is:
Michael Meltsner, assistant counsel, asked the high court to: re-
verse the death penalty passed om John Colaman, a Negro, for the al-
leged murder of a white man in Greene County, Alabama.
Mr, Coleman was originally represented by Thomas F. Seale, ja
white attorney appointed by the Alabama trial court, The petitioner
was "convicted and sentenced on circumstantial evidence alone," ‘the
Legal Defense Fund attorneys maintained.
Defense Fund attorneys pointed out that "at no time did Mr.
Seale: make any attempt to assert Mr. Coleman's constitutional right
0 grand and petit juries chosen without systematic exclusion of mem-
bers of the Negro race." y
‘ However, when Defense Fund Attorney Orzell Billingsley of & Birmingham entered the case in Mr. Coleman's behalf, the issue was formally raised, =
Attorney Billingsley filed motion for a new trial, urging for
the first time in this case, "that Negroes had been systematically
excluded" from the juries.
He filed also an affidavit of Coleman's mother which stated that the petitioner was indicted by a grand jury of 18 white men and tried by a petit jury of 12 white men. ¢
The affidavit also pointed out that "no Negroes, or only a mere tcken, have been summoned for jury duty in Greene County, Alabama, in spite of the population ratio of the two races in modern times."
Negroes make up 80 per cent of the residents of Greene County. Two per’ cent of the eligible Negroes are registered voters,
t
However, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of the lower court. It said that the defendant had not carried the bur- den of* proving exclusion of Negroes, although the trial judge had not permitted Billingsley to prove anything about the race of jurors.
Defense Fund attorneys arguedthat no evidence of exclusion was admitted because counsel was not allowed to make his proof.
Mr, Meltsner was joined by Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg and Mr. Billingsley.
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