Hernandez v. State of Texas (1954) Facts:

Hernandez v. State of Texas (1954)

Facts: This case was the only Latino-American civil-rights case heard and decided by the United States Supreme Court during the post-World War II. It involved the 1950 trial of a migrant cotton picker named Pete Hernandez for the murder of Joe Espinosa in Edna, Texas. The trial took place in a city where no one of Mexican origin had served on a jury in the town for over a quarter-century. Hernandez was convicted and his lawyer appealed on the grounds that he had not received his full Fourteenth Amendment protections.

The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, with the judges arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment covered only blacks and whites and not Mexican-Americans. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision of the appeals court: They argued that, yes, the Fourteenth Amendment did indeed cover Mexican-Americans because they were a different "class" of citizens in the sense of "class" that the Fourteenth Amendment had been designed to protect.

Reasons: The U.S. Supreme Court found that the appeals court as well as the trial court had violated the Constitutional concept of "equal protection" in allowing Mexican-Americans to be treated differently from members of others races and ruled that Hernandez had "the right to be indicted and tried by juries from which all members of his class are not systematically excluded" (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/HH/jrh1.html)

Bobb v. Municipal Court

Facts: Carolyn Bobb, an attorney, was called to serve on a jury. During the voir dire process she refused to answer certain questions (such as her husband's profession) on the grounds that while women were asked about their spouses men were not. She was held in contempt of court, and her initial appeal to have the contempt finding set aside was dismissed on the grounds that the legal protections that were granted to people because of their race did not apply to her.

Issues: The Appeals could found that Bobb had been denied her Constitutional right to equal protection under law, and reversed the finding of the municipal court. The appeals court found unpersuasive the argument that the men might have been asked the same questions and simply weren't to justify asking women different questions and thereby effectively establishing them as a separate class.

Reasons: The fundamental principle upheld in the appellate court's decision was that citizens must be treated as being equal to each other unless the state has a compelling reason not to do so. No such compelling reason was found there. "No significant difference can be seen between ordering a witness to submit to an attorney's imposition of a "relic of slavery" such as addressing blacks only by their first names, and ordering only female prospective jurors to announce their marital status and husbands' occupations which is likewise a relic of a bygone age when women were presumed incapable of independent thought. Both orders reinforce a stigma of inferiority and second-class citizenship" (http://login.findlaw.com/scripts/callaw).

Brooksbank v. Anderson

Facts: In 1984 Harlan Anderson, the appellant, and James Brooksbank formed a corporation (Total Mix Ration, Inc.) that produced and marketed a feed-mixing product. The original letter of intent was signed later amended. In 1995, Anderson requested the return of corporate funds from Brooksbank, but the courts found in Brooksbank's favot.

Issues: The lower court sided with Brooksbank on the grounds that his original "guarantee" of funds was in fact not a guarantee in the strict sense. "The district court concluded that these provisions constituted consideration because they created new or different obligations by respondent, which were not contained in earlier agreements" (http://www.lawlibrary.state.mn.us/archive/ctappub/9812/c298391.htm).The court ordered the respondent to pay over $86,000.