The U.S. Supreme Court case Sims v. Georgia in 1966 revolved around the issue of racial discrimination during jury selection for a murder trial involving an African American defendant, William Joseph Sims. The defense argued that there was systematic exclusion of black citizens from the grand and petit juries which violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under law. The State contended that it had made efforts to include more African Americans on its jury lists by using voter registration records as a source but acknowledged that fewer blacks were registered voters due to literacy tests required for voting at the time - tests historically used as discriminatory tools against people of color in Southern states like Georgia. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Sims, stating that regardless of whether or not intentional discrimination could be proven, if a state's method resulted in substantial underrepresentation then it was unconstitutional.

In the dissenting opinion for Sims v. Georgia, Justice Harlan argued that the majority's decision to overturn a death sentence due to potentially prejudicial remarks made by a prosecutor during closing arguments was unwarranted and set an unhelpful precedent. He contended that while it is important for courts to ensure fair trials, they should not scrutinize every word uttered in court with excessive zeal. Instead, he suggested that judges should consider whether any inappropriate comments were likely to have influenced the jury's verdict significantly or if they were simply minor errors unlikely to affect the outcome of trial proceedings substantially. In this case, he believed there was no substantial risk of prejudice from these statements and thus saw no reason for reversal.