Issue
Williams' counsel, Cornelius J. Jones, attacked the indictment and trial for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because blacks had been excluded from jury service following their effective disfranchisement under Mississippi's constitution of 1890. Its provisions for literacy and poll-tax qualifications essentially eliminated blacks as voters, and therefore from jury rolls, after 1892.
Williams' counsel contended that the state constitution discriminated against blacks by giving unbridled discretion to election officers, who ruled on adequate records of payment of poll taxes and qualification of electors for literacy and understanding to be registered to vote.
Read more about this topic: Williams V. Mississippi
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