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''Hernandez v. Texas'', 347 U.S. 475 (1954),〔(Full text of the decision courtesy of FindLaw )〕 was a landmark case, "the first and only Mexican-American civil-rights case heard and decided by the United States Supreme Court during the post-World War II period."In a unanimous ruling, the court held that Mexican Americans and all other racial or national groups in the United States had equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling was written by Justice Earl Warren. This was the first case in which Mexican-American lawyers had appeared before the US Supreme Court. The case was part of mid-century civil rights law, decided in the same year as ''Brown v. Board of Education'', ruling that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. ==Background== Pete Hernandez, a Mexican-American agricultural worker, was convicted for the 1950 murder of Joe Espinosa. Hernandez's ''pro bono'' legal team, including Gustavo C. García, wanted to challenge what they knew was "the systematic exclusion of persons of Mexican origin from all types of jury duty in at least seventy counties in Texas."〔 They appealed Hernandez's conviction based on the fact that Mexican Americans, a recognized minority in Texas who were treated as a class and subject to social discrimination in Jackson County, where the case had been tried, were systematically excluded from the grand jury and jury. His defense lawyers demonstrated that, although numerous Mexican Americans were citizens and had qualified for jury duty in Jackson County, during the previous 25 years no Mexican Americans were among the 6,000 persons chosen to serve on juries. This resulted in Hernandez having been deprived of equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment. Hernandez and his lawyers appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. They appealed to the United States Supreme Court through a writ of certiorari. The legal team included García, Carlos C. Cadena and John J. Herrera of the League of United Latin American Citizens, and James DeAnda and Cris Alderete of the G. I. Forum, both activist groups for civil rights for Mexican Americans. These were the first Mexican-American lawyers to represent a defendant before the US Supreme Court, which heard their arguments on January 11, 1954. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hernandez v. Texas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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