In the 1902 case of Tarrance v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a conviction despite allegations of racial discrimination in jury selection. The defendant, an African American man named Henry Tarrance, was convicted for murder by an all-white jury in Florida and sentenced to death. He appealed his conviction on grounds that black citizens were systematically excluded from serving on juries in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under law. The Supreme Court rejected this argument stating that there was no evidence showing systematic exclusion based on race during the formation of grand or petit juries within Duval County where he was tried; rather it appeared random and incidental due to other factors such as literacy tests which many potential black jurors failed at that time period. This decision reinforced states' discretion over their own judicial procedures while also highlighting limitations faced by defendants challenging discriminatory practices within those systems.

In the dissenting opinion for Tarrance v. Florida, Justice John Marshall Harlan argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Florida law allowing only white men to serve on juries was fundamentally unjust and violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. He contended that this ruling effectively denied African Americans their constitutional right to equal protection under the law by excluding them from jury service based solely on their race. Furthermore, he asserted that such racial discrimination in jury selection undermined public confidence in judicial proceedings and compromised fairness within legal processes. In his view, every citizen should have an equal opportunity to participate in civic duties like serving on a jury regardless of their race or color.