3. Excerpt from the Hernandez v. Texas Decision
In 1951, a Mexican American named Pete Hernandez was arrested and tried for murder in Edna, Texas (about 100 miles Northeast of Corpus Christi). The jury, which found him guilty, was made up entirely of Anglo/white jurors. In fact, no one of Mexican descent had been selected for jury duty in Edna in the twenty-five years prior.
Hernandez, with legal backing from LULAC, appealed his case, arguing that discriminatory jury selection had violated his Constitutional right to equal protection under the law.
In 1954, Hernandez’s appeal reached the US Supreme Court, where his lawyers demonstrated widespread discrimination against people of Mexican descent in Edna. In line with LULAC’s philosophy, Hernandez’s attorneys argued that Edna’s jury selection was social discrimination—not racism—but that Mexican Americans nonetheless constituted a “distinct class.”
The court agreed that the “equal protection” of the Fourteenth Amendment extended to Mexican Americans, and the Hernandez decision was later used to expand the court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling (which came later the same month) to challenge the segregation of Mexican American school children in Texas and beyond.
Below is an excerpt from the court’s decision, issued by US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Chief Justice Earl Warren, “Decision of the Court,” Hernandez v. Texas, 1954
The petitioner, Pete Hernandez, was indicted for the murder of one Joe Espinosa by a grand jury in Jackson County, Texas. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Prior to the trial, the petitioner, by his counsel, offered timely motions to quash the indictment and the jury panel. He alleged that persons of Mexican descent were systematically excluded from service as jury commissioners, grand jurors, and petit jurors, although there were such persons fully qualified to serve residing in Jackson County. The petitioner asserted that exclusion of this class deprived him, as a member of the class, of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution…
In numerous decisions, this Court has held that it is a denial of the equal protection of the laws to try a defendant of a particular race or color under an indictment issued by a grand jury, or before a petit jury, from which all persons of his race or color have, solely because of that race or color, been excluded by the State, whether acting through its legislature, its courts, or its executive or administrative officers…
The State of Texas would have us hold that there are only two classes–white and Negro–within the contemplation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decisions of this Court do not support that view. And, except where the question presented involves the exclusion of persons of Mexican descent from juries, Texas courts have taken a broader view of the scope of the equal protection clause.
Throughout our history differences in race and color have defined easily identifiable groups which have at times required the aid of the courts in securing equal treatment under the laws. But community prejudices are not static, and from time to time other differences from the community norm may define other groups which need the same protection. Whether such a group exists within a community is a question of fact. When the existence of a distinct class is demonstrated, and it is further shown that the laws, as written or as applied, single out that class for different treatment not based on some reasonable classification, the guarantees of the Constitution have been violated. The Fourteenth Amendment is not directed solely against discrimination due to a “two-class theory”–that is, based upon differences between “white” and Negro…
The exclusion of otherwise eligible persons from jury service solely because of their ancestry or national origin is discrimination prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment. …
The petitioner’s initial burden in substantiating his charge of group discrimination was to prove that persons of Mexican descent constitute a separate class in Jackson County, distinct from “whites.” One method by which this may be demonstrated is by showing the attitude of the community. Here the testimony of responsible officials and citizens contained the admission that residents of the community distinguished between “white” and “Mexican.” The participation of persons of Mexican descent in business and community groups was shown to be slight. Until very recent times, children of Mexican descent were required to attend a segregated school for the first four grades. At least one restaurant in town prominently displayed a sign announcing “No Mexicans Served.” On the courthouse grounds at the time of the hearing, there were two men’s toilets, one unmarked, and the other marked “Colored Men” and “Hombres Aqui” (“Men Here”). No substantial evidence was offered to rebut the logical inference to be drawn from these facts, and it must be concluded that petitioner succeeded in his proof.
Having established the existence of a class, petitioner was then charged with the burden of proving discrimination…
The petitioner established that 14% of the population of Jackson County were persons with Mexican or Latin American surnames, and that 11% of the males over 21 bore such names. The County Tax Assessor testified that 6 or 7 percent of the freeholders on the tax rolls of the County were persons of Mexican descent. The State of Texas stipulated that “for the last twenty-five years there is no record of any person with a Mexican or Latin American name having served on a jury commission, grand jury or petit jury in Jackson County.” The parties also stipulated that “there are some male persons of Mexican or Latin American descent in Jackson County who, by virtue of being citizens, freeholders, and having all other legal prerequisites to jury service, are eligible to serve as members of a jury commission, grand jury and/or petit jury”…
Circumstances or chance may well dictate that no persons in a certain class will serve on a particular jury or during some particular period. But it taxes our credulity to say that mere chance resulted in there being no members of this class among the over six thousand jurors called in the past 25 years. The result bespeaks discrimination, whether or not it was a conscious decision on the part of any individual jury commissioner. The judgment of conviction must be reversed…
The petitioner did not seek proportional representation, nor did he claim a right to have persons of Mexican descent sit on the particular juries which he faced. His only claim is the right to be indicted and tried by juries from which all members of his class are not systematically excluded–juries selected from among all qualified persons regardless of national origin or descent. To this much, he is entitled by the Constitution.
Reversed.
SOURCE:
US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren, “Opinion of the Court,” Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 1954.