It is not contended that the laws of Texas, under which grand and petit juries are selected, are in themselves discriminating and in violation of the Constitution of the United States. It is admitted by plaintiff in error that neither the constitution nor statutes of Texas prescribed any rule for, or mode of procedure
In the case of In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 449, it was intimated that if the highest court of a State "had committed an error so gross as to amount in law to a denial by the State of due process of law to one accused of crime, or of some right secured to him by the Constitution of the United States," this court might take jurisdiction, but the occurrence of such an instance was not suggested as probable.
In Barrington v. Missouri, 205 U.S. 483, 484, the plaintiff in error, before the trial of the cause commenced, applied for a change of venue on the ground of local prejudice. Upon the hearing of the application many witnesses were examined and testified, and the trial court decided that prejudice justifying a change of venue had not been made out and denied the application. In dismissing the writ of error in the above case we said:
"It is now contended that the refusal to grant the change of venue deprived plaintiff in error of a fair and impartial trial, to which, under the Federal Constitution, he was entitled. The state Supreme Court held it to be a well-settled rule of law in Missouri that the granting of a change of venue in a criminal case rested largely in the discretion of the trial court, and `that
It was ruled in Martin v. Texas, 200 U.S. 316, as in other cases, that discrimination in organizing a grand jury and impanelling a petit jury cannot be established by merely proving that no one of the defendant's race was on either of the juries, and that an accused person cannot of right demand a mixed jury, some of which shall be of his race, nor is a jury of that kind guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to any race. And it was said "What an accused is entitled to demand, under the Constitution of the United States, is that in organizing the grand jury as well as in the impanelling of the petit jury, there shall be no exclusion of his race, and no discrimination against them, because of their race or color."
As before remarked, whether such discrimination was practiced in this case was a question of fact, and the determination of that question adversely to plaintiff in error by the trial court and by the Court of Criminal Appeals was decisive, so far as this court is concerned, unless it could be held that these decisions constitute such abuse as amounted to an infraction of the Federal Constitution, which cannot be presumed, and which there is no reason to hold on the record before us. On the contrary, the careful opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals, setting forth the evidence, justifies the conclusion of that court that the negro race was not intentionally or otherwise discriminated
"It may be that the jury commissioners did not give the negro race a full pro rata with the white race in the selection of the grand and petit jurors in this case, still this would not be evidence of discrimination. If they fairly and honestly endeavored to discharge their duty, and did not in fact discriminate against the negro race in the selection of the jury lists, then the Constitution of the United States has not been violated. We understand the rule to be that mere error in administering the criminal law of the State, or in the conduct of a criminal trial, no Federal right being invaded or denied, is beyond the revisory power of the Supreme Court of the United States under the Constitution and the statutes regulating its jurisdiction."
No other point requiring consideration, the result is
Judgment affirmed.
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