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Essay On The Civil Rights Case Of Anders Vs Texas

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The civil rights case of Hernandez .vs. Texas was settled in The Supreme Court on the 3rd of May 1954, changing the lives of Mexican Americans everywhere. Attorneys Gus Garcia, Carlos Cardena, and John Herrera took on a case involving a Mexican man named Pete Hernandez, who was being sentenced to prison on a murder charge. The attorneys wanted to take Petes case because they believed he was being tried unfairly considering, he was sentenced by a jury of all Anglo people. In order for a case to be properly decided, the defendant must be questioned in front of a jury of his own peers to insure that there will not be prejudiced in the jury's ruling. Pete Hernandez had been tried in Jackson County, Texas. Local attorneys Gus Garcia caught wind of Pete’s unfair, and frankly unconstitutional, ruling and decided to take the case into his own hands for an appell. Gus Garcia saw this case as an opportunity to extend the constitutional rights of Mexican Americans. Garcia teamed up with other brilliant attorneys and “they challenged the state’s systematic exclusion of persons of Mexican origin from all types of jury duty.”(1) The case was sent to The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and from there the appell was sent to the United States Supreme court. The documentary “A Class Apart” tells how the Mexican American people were able to fight De Jure discrimination with the Hernandez .vs. Texas case. …show more content…

In this paper I will be explaining why this case was important and how the Mexican American population was able to get protection of their constitutional rights, under the 14th amendment of the United States

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