Seventy years ago, four Texas attorneys—Gus Garcia, Carlos Cadena, John Herrera, and James De Anda—made history as the first Mexican American attorneys to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court. Their client was Pete Hernandez, a farm worker accused of murder in Edna, a small town in Jackson County, Texas. The case became a vehicle to expose the systematic exclusion of Mexican Americans from jury service in over 70 Texas counties. It was also the opportune time for such a challenge. This cadre of Hispanic attorneys, with roots in Texas spanning centuries, and returning from service in World War II, would no longer tolerate treatment as second-class citizens in Texas and had begun using the law to break down barriers. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Hernandez v. Texas, issued by Chief Justice Earl Warren in May 1954, was the first civil rights decision to recognize Mexican Americans as a distinct class entitled to equal protection under the law.
