Wesley v. Collins

• Decision Date: 05 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-5271,85-5271
• Citation: 791 F.2d 1255
• Parties: Charles WESLEY and the Natural Rights Center, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. David A. COLLINS, Coordinator of Elections and W.J. Michael Cody, Attorney General of Tennessee, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1255

791 F.2d 1255

55 USLW 2003

Charles WESLEY and the Natural Rights Center, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. David A. COLLINS, Coordinator of Elections and W.J. Michael

Cody, Attorney General of Tennessee, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 85-5271.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 4, 1986.

Decided June 5, 1986.

Albert Bates, argued, Summertown, Tenn., for plaintiffs-appellants.

William P. Sizer, argued, W.J. Michael Cody, Nashville, Tenn., for defendants-appellees.

Before MARTIN and KRUPANSKY, Circuit Judges; and CHURCHILL, District Judge. ^*

KRUPANSKY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs/appellants Charles Wesley and the Natural Rights Center appealed the district court order dismissing their civil rights action which challenged the validity of the Tennessee statute disenfranchising convicted felons.

The Natural Rights Center is a public interest law project active in civil rights. Charles Wesley is an adult black citizen of Tennessee who pleaded guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact to the crime of larceny and received a suspended sentence. The offense is defined as a felony in Tennessee and Wesley was thereby disenfranchised pursuant to T.C.A. 2-19-143, the Tennessee Voting Rights Act of 1981 (the Tennessee Act), which provides that any person who has been convicted of an infamous crime in Tennessee or convicted of a crime or offense in federal court or another state court which would constitute an infamous crime in Tennessee, shall not be permitted to register to vote or to vote in any election until pardoned or until his full rights of citizenship have been restored as prescribed by law. ¹

Plaintiffs commenced this action alleging that the Tennessee Act denied them rights secured under the Federal Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1973(a) and (b) (the Voting Rights Act) as well as under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The district court granted defendants' motion, concluding that Tennessee's disenfranchisement of felons did not result in an unlawful dilution of the black vote in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The court similarly ruled that the Tennessee Act did not contravene the dictates of either the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. Wesley, et al. v. Collins, et al., 605 F.Supp. 802 (M.D.Tenn.1985). The plaintiffs appealed.

A threshold issue confronting this court is the standing of the Natural Rights Center to initiate or to join the action as a real party in interest. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Bender, et al. v. Williamsport Area School District, et al., --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 1326, 89 L.Ed.2d 501 (1986), counseled appellate courts to scrutinize pending actions for jurisdictional defects. "[E]very federal appellate court has a special obligation to 'satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review.' " --- U.S. at ----, 106 S.Ct. at 1331 (quoting Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U.S. 237, 244, 55 S.Ct. 162, 165, 79 L.Ed. 338 (1934)).

The question of standing derives from the language in Article III that "[t]he judicial Power shall extend to ... Cases ... [and] Controversies...." U.S. Const. art. III, Sec. 2. Restrictions upon standing are necessary in order to guarantee that "the dispute sought to be adjudicated will be presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution." Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 101, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1953, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968). As the Court stated in Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environ. Study, 438 U.S. 59, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978), "[t]he essence of the standing inquiry is whether the parties seeking to invoke the court's jurisdiction have alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions." 438 U.S. at 72, 98 S.Ct. at 2631 (quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962)). The standing rule requires "not only a 'distinct and palpable injury' to the plaintiff.... but also a 'fairly traceable' causal connection between the claimed injury and the challenged conduct." Duke Power Co., supra, 438 U.S. at 72, 98 S.Ct. at 2629. See also Young v. Klutznick, 652 F.2d 617 (6th Cir.1981), cert. denied sub nom., Young v. Baldrige, 455 U.S. 939, 102 S.Ct. 1430, 71 L.Ed.2d 650 (1982).

Plaintiff Natural Rights Center argued ² that its standing before this court derives from its position as a Tennessee public interest organization interested in securing a fair and equal electoral process. It contends that an injury to the voting rights of blacks results in an injury to the voting rights of all citizens of Tennessee, many of whom apparently number among its members. Assuming the validity of the alleged violations of the constitution and the Voting Rights Act, the Natural Rights Center has suffered no "distinct and palpable injury." Duke Power, supra, 438 U.S. at 72, 98 S.Ct. at 2629. At most, the Natural Rights Center's asserted injury "amounts only to a generalized grievance shared by a large number of citizens in a substantially equal measure," id. at 80, 98 S.Ct. at 2634, which is insufficient to support standing. See United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974).

Nor is this a case where the Natural Rights Center attempts to vindicate the rights of others. See, e.g., N.A.A.C.P. v. State of Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958). Plaintiff Charles Wesley was not one of its members. Moreover, any relief afforded to Wesley would inure to the benefit of all others who stand to be injured by the state's conduct, namely, black citizens of Tennessee convicted of felonies who have not been restored to the franchise. Thus, the Natural Rights Center has failed to prove that it has standing to participate in this action. The Natural Rights Center is accordingly dismissed with prejudice.

As previously noted, the Tennessee Act disenfranchises all persons who have been convicted of crimes which at the time of conviction were defined as infamous. ³ "Infamous crimes" are defined under the Tennessee Code as felony convictions. T.C.A. Sec. 40-20-112. Accordingly, all convicted felons are disenfranchised in Tennessee until the franchise is restored.

The plaintiff has charged that the Tennessee Act violates Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982. That section provides:

Sec. 3(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 4(f)(2), as provided in subsection (b).

(b) a violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, that nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

42 U.S.C. Sec. 1973.

The Voting Rights Act secures not only the opportunity for all qualified citizens to cast their ballot, but also guarantees that an individual's vote will not be diluted. White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973). While the Act, by its own terms, does not guarantee a group proportional representation, that class "does have a right to an opportunity, equal to that of other classes, to obtain such representation." Butts v. City of New York, 779 F.2d 141, 148 (2d Cir.1985).

Vote dilution occurs when a given class of individuals is effectively denied this opportunity. In Gingles v. Edmisten, 590 F.Supp. 345 (E.D.N.C.1984) (three judge court) appeal pending, --- U.S. ---, 105 S.Ct. 2137, 85 L.Ed.2d 495 (1985), the court explained the concept and essence of racial vote dilution:

[P]rimarily because of the interaction of substantial and persistent racial polarization in voting patterns (racial bloc voting) with a challenged electoral mechanism, a racial minority with distinctive group interests that are capable of aid or amelioration by government is effectively denied the political power to further those interests that numbers alone would presumptively give it in a voting constituency not racially polarized in its voting behavior. Vote dilution in this sense can exist notwithstanding the relative absence of structural barriers to exercise of the electoral franchise. It can be enhanced by other factors--cultural, political, social, economic--in which the racial minority is relatively disadvantaged and which further operate to diminish practical political effectiveness.

590 F.Supp. at 355 (citations omitted). ⁴

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act provides that a violation is established if, based upon the "totality of the circumstances," the challenged legislation "results" in unlawful dilution. A review of the legislative history of the 1982 amendments teaches that the challenging party need not prove discriminatory intent to establish a violation:

The amendment to the language of Section 2 is designed to make clear that plaintiffs need...