[3] Peter Hernandez, a Mexican-American agricultural worker, was convicted for the 1951 murder of Cayetano “Joe” Espinosa, a man that he shot in cold blood at a bar in Edna, Texas.

Hernandez's pro bono legal team, including Gustavo C. García, appealed the ruling, arguing that he was being discriminated against because there were no Mexicans in the jury that convicted him.

They hoped to challenge what they described as "the systematic exclusion of persons of Mexican origin from all types of jury duty in at least seventy counties in Texas.

Hernandez's legal team appealed, claiming that Mexican Americans, although White, were treated as a class apart and subject to social discrimination in Jackson County, where the case had been tried, and therefore were deserving of 14th Amendment protection.

[4] The legal team included García, Carlos Cadena and John J. Herrera of the League of United Latin American Citizens, and James DeAnda and Cris Alderete of the G. I.

Chief Justice Earl Warren and the rest of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Hernandez, and required he be retried by a jury composed without discrimination against Mexican Americans.