Check out "A Class Apart" - the new PBS American Experience documentary that explores this historic case In 1952 in Edna, Texas, Pete Hernandez, a twenty-one-year-old cotton picker, got into a fight with several men and was dragged from a tavern, robbed, and beaten. Upon reaching his home he collected his .22-caliber rifle, walked two miles back to the tavern, and shot one of the assailants. With forty eyewitnesses and a confession, the case appeared to be open and shut. Yet Hernandez v. Texas turned into one of the nation's most groundbreaking Supreme Court cases.

Ignacio...