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65 Fla. 287

Bonaparte v. State

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided March 11, 1913

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1913-03-11

<p>Jurors—Discriminating Against Africans in Selection of.-</p> <p>1. Our statutes on tbe subject of selection of jurors do not discriminate, and do not authorize discrimination, against any person for jury service because of race or color. But if the executive officers of the courts charged with the duty of executing such statutory provisions, deliberately, in the execution thereof, discriminate against negroes because of their race or color, it would be not only a violation of our statutes; but would violate the provisions of the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution; and would render their action null and void in any ease in which such discrimination occurred.</p> <p>2. In the trial of a challenge to the array of jurors composing a special panel selected and summoned by a deputy sheriff , on a venire directing him to summon them from the body of the county at large, where the cause of challenge is that such deputy sheriff in selecting: such panel discriminated against persons of African descent because of their race and color, and where such deputy sheriff as a witness for the State denies any such discrimination and asserts that he lias acted as deputy sheriff in such county for the past eight years, it is error for the court to sustain an objection by the State to the following cross-interrogatory to such deputy sheriff propounded by the counsel for- the' defendant who was a negro: “You have stated that you have been deputy sheriff for eight years, now state whether or not. you have selected any colored men as jurors in this court or any of the courts of the county during this time?" The question was proper cross-examination, and. if answered in the negative would have been strong impeachment of the truth of such deputy sheriff’s denial of the alleged discrimination in a county where it had been undisputedly shown that there were more negroes than white people, and that a great many of such negroes were duly qualified in every way for service as jurors. A wide latitude should be allowed in the cross-examination of a witness in the propounding of questions tending to show the interests, inclination, bias or prejudice of the witness.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Judgment reversed · Decided 1913-03-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently November 1982

15 state decisions

5019131920193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Cockrell, J.,

¶1dissenting.

¶2I think the question properly refused because based upon the assumption, not warranted on this record, that *302this witness had at any time selected any jurors, white- or colored. So far as we are advised, and perhaps to the actual knowledge of the judge presiding at the trial, Thames, though a deputy sheriff, performed other duties than that of serving venires.

¶3In the more populous counties, the work of the sheriff’s office is divided, so that different deputies are assigned to different duties, and it is easily conceivable that one deputy may never be called upon to do the class of duties assigned to another. This is not mere idle speculation. Upon this very record, and prior to the presentation of Thames as a -witness, one Nolen, had testified without contradiction, that he was and had been a deputy sheriff for five years, but did not as a rule serve venires for jurors, and that this work was done usually by Deputies Ellis, Yinzant and Lenenthal; thus showing the division of the work in the sheriff’s office and that the witness Thames was not one to whom this particular duty was assigned.

¶4The further statement in the bill of exceptions, relied upon by my brother Wi-iitfield appears to me as the statement by counsel of the purpose of the question, and but indicates more clearly the false assumption upon which the question was based.

¶5I sympathize with the majority of'this court in their efforts to keep clear the fountain head in the administration of justice, a jury box untainted with official delinquency, but it seems to me we wouíd be committing one error to correct another, and to that I cannot give assent.

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