These statements reflect the views of only five Justices. Speaking for the minority (Justices Black, Douglas, and Rutledge), Justice Murphy declared that "the vice lies in the very concept of 'blue ribbon' panels—the systematic and intentional exclusion of all but the 'best' or the most learned or intelligent of the general jurors. Such panels are completely at war with the democratic theory of our jury system, a theory formulated out of the experience of generations. One is constitutionally entitled to be judged by a fair sampling of all one's neighbors who are qualified, not merely those with superior intelligence or learning. Jury panels are supposed to be representative of all qualified classes. Within those classes, of course, are persons with varying degrees of intelligence, wealth, education, ability and experience. But it is from that welter of qualified individuals, who meet specified minimum standards, that juries are to be chosen. Any method that permits only the 'best' of these to be selected opens the way to grave abuses. The jury is then in danger of losing its democratic flavor and becoming the instrument of the select few." A "blue ribbon jury" is neither "a jury of the * * * [defendant's] peers," nor "a jury chosen from a fair cross-section of the community, * * *"—Moore v. New York, 333 U.S. 565, 569-570 (1948).
[875] Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U.S. 638 (1906). The Supreme Court "has never entertained a defendant's objections to exclusions from the jury except when he was a member of the excluded class."—Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261, 287 (1947).
[876] 211 U.S. 78, 93, 106-107, 113; citing Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U.S. 22 (1880); and Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 387, 389 (1898).
[877] In several decisions the Court, assuming, but without deciding, that a State law requiring a witness to answer incriminating questions would violate the due process clause, has then proceeded to conclude, nevertheless, that a State antitrust law which grants immunity from local prosecution to a witness compelled to testify thereunder is valid even though testimony thus extracted may later serve as the basis of a federal prosecution for violation of federal antitrust laws.—Jack v. Kansas, 199 U.S. 372, 380 (1905).
[878] Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934).
[879] Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325-326 (1937).
[880] 297 U.S. 278, 285-286 (1936). For the significance of this decision as a precedent in favor of a more careful scrutiny by the Supreme Court of State trials in which a denial of constitutional rights allegedly occurred, see p. [1138].
[881] Ibid, 285-286.
[882] 309 U.S. 227 (1940).
[883] Ibid. 228-229, 237-241.