Who was the Chief Justice behind the Supreme Court decision where Robert Cooper Grier served as a juror, which denied a "negro" could an American citizenship?
Robert Cooper Grier Robert Cooper Grier (March 5, 1794 – September 25, 1870), was an American jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States. A Jacksonian Democrat from Pennsylvania who served from 1846 to 1870, Grier weighed in on some of the most important cases of the 19th century. As a rare Northern member of the majority in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, Grier concurred that African Americans were not—and were never meant to be—citizens of the United States and that the property rights of slaveholders were clearly protected in the Constitution. However, Grier wrote the majority opinion in the 1863 Prize Cases, upholding Abraham Lincoln’s presidential power to institute Union blockades of Confederate ports and giving the Union Army a strategic advantage in the American Civil War.
People v. Newton People v. Newton, 8 Cal. App. 3d 359 (Ct. App. 1970), was a controversial appeal arising from the voluntary manslaughter conviction of Huey P. Newton, the reputed co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The California Court of Appeal reversed Newton’s conviction due to prejudicial error stemming from the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury as to the possibility of involuntary unconsciousness as a complete defense to the charges. Though Newton’s attorney arguably withdrew the defense at trial, the Court nonetheless held that the failure to instruct violated Newton’s constitutional right to have the jury determine all material issues based on the evidence. This case stands for the proposition that trial courts have an affirmative duty to instruct juries as to a defense of involuntary unconsciousness where there exists evidence that may support that conclusion.