Norris v. Alabama: Supreme Court Bars Exclusion of Black Jurors

In Norris v. Alabama (1935), the Supreme Court unanimously reversed Clarence Norris's death sentence, finding that Black citizens had been systematically excluded from Alabama jury rolls in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Chief Justice Hughes noted that no Black person had served on a jury in Jackson County in living memory despite a substantial Black population. The ruling was a landmark precedent against discriminatory jury selection, though Southern states continued to evade it through facially neutral exclusion mechanisms for decades.