FULL TEXT
U.S. Supreme Court
Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1880)
1. A., a judge of a county court in Virginia, charged by the law of that State with the selection of jurors to serve for the year 1878 in the circuit and county courts of his county, was, in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Virginia, indicted for excluding and failing to select as grand jurors and petit jurors certain citizens of his county of African race and black color, who, possessing all other qualifications prescribed by law, were excluded from the jury lists made out by him as such officer, on account of their race, color, and previous condition of servitude, and for no other reason, against the peace, &c., of the United States, and against the form of the statute in such case made and provided. Being in custody under that indictment, he presented to this court his petition for a writ of habeas corpus and a writ of certiorari to bring up the record of the inferior court, that he might be discharged, averring that the finding of the indictment, and his arrest and imprisonment thereunder, were unwarranted by the Constitution of the United States, in violation of his rights and the rights of the State of Virginia, whose judicial officer he is, and that the inferior court had no jurisdiction to proceed against him. A similar petition was presented by Virginia.