In Eubanks v. Louisiana (1957), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state law allowing private citizens to initiate criminal proceedings was unconstitutional, as it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. The case involved an African-American man named John Eubanks who was convicted of murder in Louisiana after a private citizen initiated his prosecution. The court found that this practice allowed for potential discrimination and arbitrary enforcement of laws, particularly against racial minorities like Eubanks himself. Therefore, they concluded that such practices were not consistent with principles of fairness and impartiality inherent in the concept of due process.

In the dissenting opinion for Eubanks v. Louisiana, Justice Frankfurter argued that the majority's decision to overturn Eubanks' conviction was a misinterpretation of due process rights and an overreach of federal power into state affairs. He contended that it is not within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to review jury selection procedures in state courts unless there is clear evidence of racial discrimination or other constitutional violations. In this case, he believed there was no such violation as black people were not systematically excluded from juries but rather their underrepresentation was due to chance or individual biases among those selecting jurors, which are beyond the control of law enforcement officials and therefore cannot be considered unconstitutional. Furthermore, he asserted that even if some form of bias did exist in jury selection processes, it would still fall short of constituting a denial of equal protection since all defendants regardless their race face similar risks when tried by randomly selected juries.