Page:Bone v. State (1939).pdf/1

 

BONE v. STATE.

Opinion delivered June 5, 1939.

1. CRIMINAL LAW.—The Supreme Court will indulge every reasonable presumption in support of the action of the trial court; but when the court sets forth its reason for making some particular order in a proceeding before it, the Supreme Court cannot assume that it had some other reason than the one specifically set forth for its action.
2. CRIMINAL LAW—REASON FOR NOT QUASHING JURY PANEL.—Where defendants, of the African race, charged with murder, moved to quash the jury panel on the ground that although one-fifth of the population of the county was of the negro race they had been systematically excluded by the administrative officers of the state from jury service solely because of their race or color and alleging that this was, in the case against them, a denial of due process of law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a denial of the motion "for the reason that there has been three colored men placed on the regular panel before motion herein was filed" and without hearing evidence was error, especially where the record shows that three white jurors had without assigning reason therefor, been excused and the three colored men placed on the panel.
3. CRIMINAL LAW—EXCLUSION OF NEGROES FROM JURY SERVICE.—The vice in trying a negro charged with murder by a jury of the white race lies not in the fact that there are not any members of the colored race on the jury, but in the systematic exclusion of negroes from the regular jury panel.
4. INDICTMENTS AND INFORMATIONS.—Although deceased was shot once only, there was no error in charging in the information that