Дело Strauder v. West Virginia: Расовая дискриминация и право на справедливый суд.

Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States about racial discrimination and United States constitutional criminal procedure. Strauder was the first instance where the Supreme Court reversed a state court decision denying a defendant's motion to remove his criminal trial to federal court pursuant to Section 3 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Its holding, along with those of its companion cases of Virginia v. Rives (1880) and Ex parte Virginia (1880) established the proposition that it is a denial to criminal defendants of the equal protection of the law for a state to exclude persons from service on a grand or petit jury on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. These holdings do not guarantee criminal defendants that the grand or petit juries involved in their case will be composed either in full or in part of members of a non white defendant's race (as was sought in the Rives case), but held instead that equal protection demands only that potential jurors could not be excluded from jury service on account of their race. Additionally, the Supreme Court did not exercise its power of judicial review to strike down West Virginia's juror qualifications statute as unconstitutional, as Strauder and his attorneys did not seek such a remedy. Instead, Strauder desired his case be removed to federal court, where he expected he could receive a venire that included freedmen. In Strauder and the companion cases, the Supreme Court also issued a narrow interpretation of the removal provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. For a case to be removed to federal court, the denial of rights must occur in the constitution or laws of the state, or in other pre trial actions of state officials, that state courts are without power to remedy—that is, it held that the Civil Rights Act required removal be based on objectively discernible facts about the denial of rights (such as the exclusion of freedmen from the jury pool by Judge Coles in Ex parte Virginia, despite Virginia law allowing freedmen to serve as jurors, an act in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1875), and not the defendant's subjective beliefs about potential outcomes of a state administered trial. The Supreme Court provided that the remedy for denials of equal protection occurring during trial can be found in the appeals process; only those cases where equal rights cannot be enforced before state judicial bodies are appropriate to be removed to federal court.

On the morning of April 18, 1872 in Wheeling, West Virginia, Taylor Strauder, a former slave, allegedly murdered his wife Anna by bludgeoning her to death with two strikes from a hatchet handle to the left side of her head after having argued with her through the night about an allegation of her marital infidelity. Strauder's step daughter, Fannie Green, supposedly witnessed the murder, and alleged that Strauder threatened Green to remain quiet, lest she too be killed. Strauder allegedly fled and was arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 25, 1872.

Following the passage and ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Under section 3 of the act, Congress provided to defendants in state trials the right to remove to federal court "all causes, civil or criminal," arising under state or municipal laws wherein "any of the rights secured to [the defendant] by the first section of this act" were denied or could not be enforced. Later fearing that the Thirteenth Amendment might not provide a sufficient legal basis for the Civil Rights Act, Congress passed and the states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress then passed the act of May 31, 1870, of which section 18 reenacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Moreover, section 16 of the 1870 act also provided that "all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory in the United States to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens[.]"

Upon his return to Wheeling, Strauder appeared before the circuit court for Ohio County, West Virginia and received a preliminary examination before Judge Thayer Melvin. The court assigned George O. Davenport and Blackburn B. Dovener as Strauder's counsel, and set his arraignment for the May 1872 term of the circuit court. On May 20, 1872 the grand jury returned an indictment for murder in the first degree. Strauder demurred the indictment as defective, arguing the facts alleged did not rise to murder in the first degree, and that the panel from which the grand jury was selected excluded non whites; the court overruled the arguments. Counsel for Strauder then attempted to remove the case to the U. S. district court for West Virginia, but this too was overruled. Strauder then pleaded not guilty by reason of temporary insanity and asked the court for a continuance to the October term, which was granted. At the next term, Strauder received a second continuance to the May 1873 term. During the first continuance, the State of West Virginia adopted a new state constitution in August 1872. The state legislature reconstructed the state courts and passed a criminal procedure bill on April 3, 1873 providing criminal defendants with preliminary examinations to occur at the county court (as distinguished from the circuit court for the county). At the May 1873 term of the circuit court, Strauder made a motion requesting this examination before the county court. The circuit court denied the motion, citing the preliminary examination the circuit court had already given. The case then proceeded to trial over May 6–8, 1873; the jury returned a verdict of guilty after approximately 90 minutes of deliberations. The court sentenced Strauder to death by hanging on July 8, 1873.

On appeal, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held on July 20, 1874 that, since Strauder's case had not yet commenced trial at the time of the passage of the April 3, 1873 statute providing for a preliminary examination before trial, Strauder's case was within the scope of the statute. Since Strauder had timely made the request for the examination, the ruling of the circuit court denying the examination by the county court on grounds that the statute wasn't applicable to the case was reversed. "The error of the circuit court in refusing the accused an examination before the county court of the county of Ohio upon said charge of murder, is fatal to all the other proceedings in the cause by which the accused was tried, convicted and sentenced to be hung " Consequently, the supreme court reversed the circuit court's denial of the request for the preliminary examination, overruled and nulled all rulings made in the case after that point, set aside the verdict, and remanded the case with instructions that the preliminary examination take place in the county court in accordance with the law.

The clerk of the circuit court certified the case to the county court, which completed its preliminary examination on September 9, 1874 and remanded Strauder to the circuit court for trial. A grand jury convened and on October 20, 1874 returned an indictment similar to that of May 20, 1872. Strauder's arraignment on the new indictment took place on November 2, 1874. At the arraignment, Strauder and his counsel moved to quash the new indictment and to remove the case to federal court on grounds that West Virginia law precluded non white citizens from grand and petit jury service. During the course of the first trial, an act regarding trial procedure had passed as part of the 1873 reconstruction of the West Virginia courts in consequence of the new state constitution; the act of March 12, 1873 provided "[a]ll white male persons, who are twenty one years of age and not over sixty, and who are citizens of this State, shall be liable to serve as jurors, except as herein provided." The only exception provided regarded service as a state official. The judge denied both motions. Strauder then demurred each count contained in the indictment and was again overruled. At that point, Strauder pleaded not guilty to the indictment, and the trial proceeded to jury selection, which resulted in an all white jury. Strauder's counsel raised an objection to the composition of this jury was entered, but the court overruled the objection. The trial continued through November 4 when the case went to the jury for deliberations. On November 5, the jury returned a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death. Strauder and his counsel moved for a new trial on grounds of an impartial juror and that the jury contained no jurors of Strauder's race, for which arguments were heard January 5, 1875. The court denied the motion, and proceeded to sentence Strauder to death by hanging on January 9, 1875.

Arguments before the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia took place June 27, 1876. Strauder's counsel raised 11 points of exception. The supreme court handed down its ruling on November 17, 1877, relying on the opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States in The Slaughter House Cases and Bradwell v. Illinois to find the Fourteenth Amendment had not been "intended to protect the citizens of any State against unjust legislation by their own State." The Supreme Court consequently affirmed the trial court's denial of the motion to remove of the case to federal court as correct. Strauder's case was then sent back to the Circuit Court of Ohio County for resentencing, but held over until the April 1878 term. While awaiting resentencing, Strauder and his counsel appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. On April 15, 1878, Chief Justice Morrison Waite granted a writ of error. The case was set for argument in the October 1879 term, and oral arguments were heard over October 20–21, 1879 along with the companion cases of Virginia v. Rives and Ex parte Virginia. Assisting Strauder's counsel in the arguments before the Supreme Court were U. S. Attorney General Charles Devens and former justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia Westel Willoughby. Arguing for the State of West Virginia were West Virginia Attorney General Robert White and special counsel James W. Green, a Virginia lawyer.

The two dissenting justices, Field and Clifford, explained their position in the case of Ex Parte Virginia, decided the same day. In the latter case, Field wrote, with Clifford joining, "The equality of the protection secured extends only to civil rights, as distinguished from those which are political or arise from the form of the government and its mode of administration." The precedent set by Strauder has continued to influence rulings in cases as late as 1961 in Hoyt v. Florida. Because it was not raised in the context of Strauder, the Court also did not consider in its analysis whether state actions that have a disparate impact upon African Americans would violate the Equal Protection Clause; that question was not considered until almost a century later in Washington v. Davis, which reaffirmed that Strauder "established that the exclusion of [African Americans] from grand and petit juries in criminal proceedings violated the Equal Protection Clause, but the fact that a particular jury or a series of juries does not statistically reflect the racial composition of the community does not, in itself, make out an invidious discrimination forbidden by the Clause." .