In the case of Williams v. Georgia, 1954, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that a defendant's right to due process was violated when he was convicted by an all-white jury in a state where African Americans were systematically excluded from jury service. The court held that such exclusion constituted discrimination and thus violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision overturned an earlier ruling by the Supreme Court of Georgia which had upheld Mr. Williams' conviction for murder on grounds that he failed to prove intentional racial discrimination in his trial's jury selection process.

In the dissenting opinion for Williams v. Georgia, Justice Reed argued that the Supreme Court should not have jurisdiction over this case as it was a matter of state law and not federal law. He contended that there were no constitutional issues at stake in this case, which involved an African American man convicted by an all-white jury in Georgia. The majority had ruled that racial discrimination occurred during jury selection; however, Justice Reed disagreed with their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. He believed that since there was no evidence to suggest intentional exclusion of black jurors due to race or color, it did not violate equal protection rights under the Constitution. Furthermore, he asserted that states should be allowed to manage their own judicial systems without interference from federal courts unless clear violations of constitutional rights are present.