finding no constitutional issue where the circumstances did not "suggest a significant likelihood that racial prejudice might infect [defendant's] trial," simply due to the "mere fact that the victim of the crimes alleged was a white man and the defendants were Negroes"
How later courts described this case
- finding no constitutional issue where the circumstances did not "suggest a significant likelihood that racial prejudice might infect [defendant's] trial," simply due to the "mere fact that the victim of the crimes alleged was a white man and the defendants were Negroes"
- holding that voir dire concerning racial prejudice can be required as an exercise of supervisory authority
- concluding that specific questioning about racial bias was not necessary where the particular circumstances of. the case “did not suggest a significant likelihood that racial prejudice might infect [the] trial”
- holding that specific questions regarding racial bias were not necessary when the circumstances of the case “did not suggest a significant likelihood that racial prejudice might infect [the] trial.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Me. Justice White
concurs in the result on the ground that Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U. S. 524 (1973), announced a new constitutional rule applicable to federal and state criminal trials and that this rule should not be applied retroactively to cases such as this involving trials which occurred prior to the decision in Ham .