the supreme court held that the systematic exclusion of african americans from jury service violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. the case was a significant advance in the supreme court's criminal procedure jurisprudence. building on the existing precedent of "strauder v. west virginia" (1880) and "neal v. delaware" (1882), the supreme court addressed an alabama statute that was facially neutral, but held that a criminal defendant could establish a prima facie (that is, accepted as true unless proven otherwise) claim of discrimination by showing that a substantial number of african americans live in a community and that african americans have been excluded from serving on juries. the prima facie in this case was the disproportionality in the amount of african-americans who lived in the county compared to the amount of african-americans represented on juries.