In the 1940 case Smith v. Texas, Elmer Smith was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by a Texas court. The U.S Supreme Court overturned this conviction on grounds that the jury selection process violated his constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Specifically, it was found that African Americans were systematically excluded from serving as jurors in Dallas County where Smith's trial took place. This exclusion resulted in an all-white jury which did not represent a cross-section of community peers for Mr. Smith who was black himself. The Supreme Court ruled that such discriminatory practices invalidated any verdict reached by such juries and ordered a retrial with fairer juror selection procedures.

In the dissenting opinion for Smith v. Texas, it was argued that the majority's decision to overturn a conviction based on racial discrimination in jury selection was incorrect. The dissenters believed there wasn't enough evidence to prove systematic exclusion of African Americans from juries in Dallas County, where the trial took place. They pointed out that while only 8% of jurors were black (compared to 25% of eligible juror population), this could be due to reasons other than intentional discrimination such as lower response rates or higher disqualification rates among blacks. Furthermore, they noted that even if there was unintentional bias in jury selection process, it wouldn't necessarily violate equal protection clause unless it resulted from state action rather than private choices or circumstances beyond control of court officials.