Reversal of Death Penalty Because of Unfair Jury

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- Press Releases
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- LDF
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- 8dd390cc-b892-ee11-be37-6045bddb811f

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Press Releases, Volume 5. Reversal of Death Penalty Because of Unfair Jury, 8dd390cc-b892-ee11-be37-6045bddb811f. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/8056a990-1970-4e19-9aac-1e1442a7df08/reversal-of-death-penalty-because-of-unfair-jury. Accessed July 30, 2025.

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    Civil rights lawyers hailed today a decision 

of the United States court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit * 

reversing the death sentence of a Texas murderer because . 

Persons opposed to capital punishment were excluded from 

the jury which sentenced him to death. The decision was 

the first applying a recent decision of the United States 

Supreme Court in favor of a death row inmate holding that 

no person could be executed who was tried by a jury from 

Which persons generally opposed to capital Punishment were 

systematically excluded. 

Leon Spencer, a Texas Negro, was convicted 

and sentenced to death in 1964 for the crime of rer rn 

the process of selecting a jury, 23 bersons.who stated they 

were opposed to capital punishment were excused. Spencer 

originally unsuccessfully appealed his conviction to the 



Supreme Court on other grounds and was resentenced to die 

on November 19, 1967. Three days before the scheduled . 

execution, his Texas attorney, Michael D. Matheny joined 

based 

by New york/attorneys with ‘the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 

obtained a reprieve and appealed to the Fifth Circuit. 

Spencer's case is one of the over 200 brought 

by the Legal Defense Fund in State and Federal Courts challenging 

the constitutionality of capital punishment. According to 

Jack Himmelstein who SG s sheets these suits for the Fund, 

the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision "may well point 

the way for other courts to reverse the death sentences of 

the presently 500 condemned men in the country:

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Reversal of Death Penalty Because of Unfair Jury

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