Strauder v. West Virginia 1879
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 380-383 |
Page 380
Appellant: Taylor Strauder
Appellee: State of West Virginia
Appellant's Claim: That West Virginia violated his constitutional rights by excluding African Americans from the jury selection process.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant: Charles Devans and George O. Davenport
Chief Lawyers for Appellee: Robert White, Attorney General of West Virginia, and James W. Green
Justices for the Court: Joseph P. Bradley, John Marshall Harlan, Ward Hunt, Samuel Freeman Miller, William Strong, Noah Haynes Swayne, Morrison Remick Waite
Justices Dissenting: Nathan Clifford, Stephen Johnson Field
Date of Decision: March 1, 1880
Decision: The Supreme Court reversed Strauder's murder conviction.
Significance: With Strauder, the Supreme Court said African American men have the same right as white men to serve on juries.
The American Declaration of Independence, written in 1776, says all men are created equal. Shamefully, the United States of America did not treat all men equally when it was born that year. White men owned
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African Americans as slaves, forcing them to work on plantations to make the white men wealthy.
The United States finally outlawed slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Prejudice against African Americans remained high, however, in the former slave states. There was concern that these states would discriminate against newly freed slaves by treating them differently under the law. To prevent that, the United States adopted the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
The Equal Protection Clause is an important part of the Fourteenth Amendment. It says states may not deny anyone "the equal protection of the laws." This means states must apply their laws equally to all citizens. In Strauder v. West Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court had to decide whether a law that prevented African Americans from serving on juries violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Taylor Strauder was an African American who was charged with murder in Ohio County, West Virginia, on 20 October 1874. A West Virginia law said only white men could serve as jurors. Strauder did not think he could get a fair trial in a state that did not allow African Americans to serve on juries. In fact, he thought West Virginia's law violated the Equal Protection Clause by treating African Americans unequally.
A federal law said a defendant could have his case moved from state...
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