of the
prosecutor until paid.[1200] Statutes providing for recovery of
reasonable attorney's fees in action on small claims against all classes
of defendants, individual and corporate,[1201] in mandamus
proceedings,[1202] or in actions against railroads for damages caused by
fires[1203] have been upheld. But a statute, applicable only to railway
corporations, providing for recovery of attorney's fees and costs in
actions for certain small claims was found to be repugnant to the equal
protection clause.[1204]

Selection of Jury

Exercising the authority conferred by section 5 of the Fourteenth
Amendment, Congress has expressly forbidden the exclusion of any citizen
from service as a grand or petit juror in any federal or State court, on
the ground of race or color.[1205] Jury commissioners are under the duty
"not to pursue a course of conduct in the administration of their office
which would operate to discriminate in the selection of jurors on racial
grounds."[1206] An accused does not, however, have a legal right to a
jury composed in whole or in part of members of his own race.[1207] Mere
inequality in the numbers of persons selected from different races is
not conclusive; discrimination is unlawful only if it is purposeful and
systematic.[1208] But where it appeared that no Negro had served on a
grand or petit jury for thirty years in a county in which 35 per cent of
the adult population was colored, the inference of systematic exclusion
was not repelled by a showing that few Negroes fulfilled the requirement
that a juror must be a qualified elector.[1209]

To what extent, if at all, the equal protection clause prevents the
exclusion from jury service of any class of persons on any basis other
than race or color is a still unsettled problem of constitutional
interpretation. The selection of jurors may be confined to males, to
citizens, to qualified electors, to persons within certain ages, or to
persons having prescribed educational qualifications.[1210] Certain
occupational groups, such as lawyers, preachers, ministers, doctors,
dentists, and engineers and firemen of railroad trains may be excluded
from jury service.[1211] An issue of even greater consequence is raised
by differentiation in the qualifications of persons selected to try
different kinds of cases. This was the question on which the Supreme
Court divided five to four in Fay _v._ New York[1212] where it upheld a
conviction by a "blue ribbon" jury.