Swain v. Alabama
E821201
Swain v. Alabama was a 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision that set a high evidentiary bar for proving racial discrimination in jury selection, later overturned by Batson v. Kentucky.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Swain v. Alabama canonical | 3 |
| Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T9799055 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Swain v. Alabama Context triple: [Batson v. Kentucky, overruledPrecedent, Swain v. Alabama]
-
A.
Powell v. Alabama
Powell v. Alabama is a landmark 1932 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held in capital cases the Due Process Clause requires defendants be given access to effective legal counsel, especially when they are young, illiterate, or otherwise disadvantaged.
-
B.
Stone v. Mississippi
Stone v. Mississippi is an 1880 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a state cannot irrevocably surrender its police power, allowing Mississippi to prohibit a previously chartered lottery despite contractual claims.
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C.
Hamilton v. Alabama
Hamilton v. Alabama is a 1961 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held an indigent defendant in a capital case has a constitutional right to counsel at arraignment, treating that stage as a critical point in the criminal process.
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D.
Furman v. Georgia
Furman v. Georgia is a landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that temporarily halted capital punishment nationwide by ruling existing death penalty schemes unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
-
E.
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down a city ordinance that gave officials broad discretion to deny parade permits, reinforcing First Amendment protections for civil rights demonstrators.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Swain v. Alabama Target entity description: Swain v. Alabama was a 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision that set a high evidentiary bar for proving racial discrimination in jury selection, later overturned by Batson v. Kentucky.
-
A.
Powell v. Alabama
Powell v. Alabama is a landmark 1932 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held in capital cases the Due Process Clause requires defendants be given access to effective legal counsel, especially when they are young, illiterate, or otherwise disadvantaged.
-
B.
Stone v. Mississippi
Stone v. Mississippi is an 1880 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a state cannot irrevocably surrender its police power, allowing Mississippi to prohibit a previously chartered lottery despite contractual claims.
-
C.
Hamilton v. Alabama
Hamilton v. Alabama is a 1961 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held an indigent defendant in a capital case has a constitutional right to counsel at arraignment, treating that stage as a critical point in the criminal process.
-
D.
Furman v. Georgia
Furman v. Georgia is a landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that temporarily halted capital punishment nationwide by ruling existing death penalty schemes unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
-
E.
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down a city ordinance that gave officials broad discretion to deny parade permits, reinforcing First Amendment protections for civil rights demonstrators.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
criminal procedure case ⓘ jury selection case ⓘ |
| appliesTo | peremptory challenges ⓘ |
| concerns |
racial discrimination against Black citizens in jury service
ⓘ
use of peremptory strikes to exclude Black jurors ⓘ |
| establishedStandard | requirement of proof of long-term systematic exclusion of a racial group from juries ⓘ |
| hasAreaOfLaw |
civil rights
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ criminal law ⓘ criminal procedure ⓘ |
| hasChiefJusticeAtDecision | Earl Warren ⓘ |
| hasCitation | 380 U.S. 202 ⓘ |
| hasConstitutionalProvisionInvoked |
Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause
ⓘ
linked to:
Equal Protection Clause
|
| hasCountry |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| hasCourt | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| hasDecisionDate | 1965 ⓘ |
| hasDecisionType | majority opinion ⓘ |
| hasDefendantRace | Black ⓘ |
| hasFullCitation |
Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965)
ⓘ
linked to:
Swain v. Alabama
|
| hasHistoricalSignificance |
illustrates limitations of early Equal Protection jurisprudence on jury discrimination
ⓘ
key pre-Batson precedent on racial discrimination in jury selection ⓘ |
| hasImpact |
allowed broad prosecutorial discretion in use of peremptory challenges
ⓘ
made it very difficult for defendants to prove racial discrimination in jury selection ⓘ |
| hasJurisdiction |
State of Alabama
ⓘ
linked to:
Alabama
|
| hasLegalIssue |
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
ⓘ
linked to:
Equal Protection Clause
racial discrimination in jury selection ⓘ |
| hasMajorityOpinionBy |
Justice Byron White
ⓘ
linked to:
Byron R. White
|
| hasPetitioner | Robert Swain ⓘ |
| hasProceduralPosture | review of a state criminal conviction on writ of certiorari ⓘ |
| hasRespondent |
State of Alabama
ⓘ
linked to:
Alabama
|
| hasSubjectMatter | criminal conviction of a Black defendant by an all-white or nearly all-white jury ⓘ |
| hasSubsequentHistory | standard for proving racial discrimination in peremptory challenges replaced by Batson v. Kentucky ⓘ |
| hasTimePeriod | Warren Court era ⓘ |
| held |
a defendant must show systematic exclusion of Black jurors over time to prove unconstitutional discrimination
ⓘ
discriminatory use of peremptory challenges in a single case is insufficient to establish an Equal Protection violation under its standard ⓘ |
| interprets |
Equal Protection Clause
ⓘ
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ
linked to:
Fourteenth Amendment
|
| isRelatedCase |
Batson v. Kentucky
ⓘ
Georgia v. McCollum ⓘ Hernandez v. Texas ⓘ Powers v. Ohio ⓘ Strauder v. West Virginia ⓘ |
| isRelatedDoctrine |
Batson challenge
ⓘ
linked to:
Batson v. Kentucky
|
| wasCriticizedFor |
insulating discriminatory jury selection practices from effective challenge
ⓘ
setting an extremely high evidentiary burden for proving racial discrimination in jury selection ⓘ |
| wasOverruledBy | Batson v. Kentucky ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Swain v. Alabama Description of subject: Swain v. Alabama was a 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision that set a high evidentiary bar for proving racial discrimination in jury selection, later overturned by Batson v. Kentucky.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.