Caldwell v. Texas

Citations

• 137 U.S. 692
• 11 S. Ct. 224
• 34 L. Ed. 816
• 1891 U.S. LEXIS 2059

Syllabus

<p>No State can deprive particular persons or classes of persons of equal and impartial justice under the law, without violating the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.</p> <p>Due process of law, within the meaning of the Constitution, is secured when the laws operate on all alike, and no- one is subjected to partial or arbitrary exercise of the powers of government.</p> <p>No question of repugnancy to the Federal Constitution can be fairly said to arise when the inquiry of a State court is directed to the sufficiency of an indictment in the ordinary administration of criminal law, and the statutes authorizing the form of indictment do not obviously violate these fundamental principles.</p> <p>An indictment, framed in accordance with the laws of Texas, which charges that the prisoner at a time and place named did, “ unlawfully and'with express malice aforethought, kill one J. M. Shamblin by shooting him with a gun, contrary to the form of the statute ” et cet., does no violation to the provisions, of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.</p>