Canton Branch, NAACP v. City of Canton, Miss., Civ. A. No. J77-0136(R)
| Decision Date | 05 March 1979 |
| Docket Number | J77-0129(N).,Civ. A. No. J77-0136(R) |
| Citation | 472 F. Supp. 859 |
| Parties | CANTON BRANCH, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR the ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, an Unincorporated Association, Tom Alexander, Sam Young, Walter Caldwell, and Wilbert Robinson, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF CANTON, MISSISSIPPI, Harry S. Baldwin, Mayor, Earnest A. (Gus) Kraft, Phillip Buffington, J. D. Maness, Glynn L. Cook, Earl B. Goolsby, Sr., H. B. Cooper and Ernest Perkins, Aldermen, Individually and in their official capacities as Members of the Board of Aldermen of the City of Canton; City of Canton Municipal Democratic Executive Committee, Charles Riddell, Chairman of the City Democratic Executive Committee, City of Canton Municipal Election Commission, R. H. Shackleford, Jr., Dr. George Carmichael and William B. Crawford, Members of the City Election Commission, Defendants. Eugene HINTON, Eddie G. Akins, Robert S. Mizell, James N. Stewart, Robert Taylor, Larry Saxton, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Harry BALDWIN, Mayor of the City of Canton, Mississippi, Phillip Buffington, J. D. Maness, Glynn Cook, Earl B. Goolsby, H. B. Cooper, Ernest Perkins and Earnest A. Kraft, Jr., Aldermen of the City of Canton, Mississippi, Election Commissioners of the City of Canton, Mississippi, and the Democratic Executive Committee of the City of Canton, Mississippi, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi |
G. M. Case, Case, Montgomery & Smith-Vaniz, Canton, Miss., Thomas J. Ginger, Frank R. Parker, Michael A. Middleton, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiffs.
R. L. Goza, Canton, Miss., Edward Blackmon, Jr., Blackmon, Smith & Nichols, Canton, Miss., for defendants.
In these two cases the Court is asked to consider the constitutionality of a municipal form of government, commonly called a voter dilution case, and to fashion an appropriate remedy if a constitutional infirmity is found to be present. The city involved in this case is Canton, Mississippi, the County Seat of Madison County, Mississippi, and two aspects of this litigation distinguish it somewhat from the usual case of this nature. First is the fact that a group of white citizens of Canton, as well as a group of black citizens, have challenged the constitutionality of the present form of municipal government. Second is the fact that blacks comprise a majority of Canton's total population as well as a majority of its voting-age population.
Hinton v. Baldwin, was filed April 22, 1977 as a class action on behalf of all citizens and registered voters of Canton challenging the apportionment of its municipal wards and alleging a violation of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1971, 1973 and 1983. Canton Branch, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. City of Canton, Mississippi, was filed April 28, 1977 as a class action on behalf of all residents and registered voters of Canton and all black residents and black registered voters of Canton challenging apportionment of the municipal wards and alleging a dilution of black voting strength in violation of the rights secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States. In their suit the Hinton plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to stop the city from holding the municipal primary election of May 10, 1977 or any other election utilizing the wards then in effect in Canton, and this Court granted this injunction on May 2, 1977, by agreement of the parties, enjoining the defendants from conducting or holding any further municipal primary or general elections for members of the Canton Board of Aldermen on the basis of the wards then in existence until the case could be adjudicated on the merits. On May 3, 1977, pursuant to F.R.Civ.P. 42(a), the NAACP plaintiffs filed a Motion to Consolidate their case with the action brought by the Hinton plaintiffs on the ground that both actions involved a common question of law and fact, and by agreement of all parties the two cases were consolidated for trial on their merits. Subsequent to the consolidation we ruled that both cases could be maintained as class actions on behalf of a class consisting of all citizens and registered voters of the City of Canton and that insofar as the issue of dilution of black voting strength in the proposed plans for the city were concerned, the NAACP class might represent a class consisting of all black citizens and all black registered voters of the City of Canton. On July 5, 1977 by agreement of all the parties the Court entered a partial summary judgment declaring that the six wards then in use in the City of Canton for the election of members of the Board of Aldermen violated the one man-one vote guarantee of the United States Constitution, permanently enjoining the defendants from conducting or holding any further municipal primary or general elections under the existing ward population apportionment, and giving the parties the opportunity to submit to the Court within 120 days their views for quantitatively reapportioning the wards in the City of Canton in a constitutional manner.
The defendants have adopted and filed a plan with this Court reapportioning the wards of the City of Canton. The Hinton plaintiffs support the plan the defendants have adopted but the NAACP plaintiffs have filed objections to the defendants' plan, and have also filed their own plan, to which the defendants and the Hinton plaintiffs have objected.
The plaintiffs in the Hinton case are Eugene Hinton, Eddie G. Akin, Robert S. Mizell, James N. Stewart, Robert Taylor and Larry Thaxton, all citizens of the United States and registered voters of Canton, Mississippi. The NAACP plaintiffs are the Canton Branch of that unincorporated civil rights organization and Tom Alexander, Sam Young, Walter Caldwell, and Wilbert Robinson, all black citizens of the United States and residents and registered voters of Canton.
The defendant City of Canton, Mississippi is a municipal corporation organized under the laws of the State of Mississippi. Other than the defendant city which is sued only by the NAACP plaintiffs, all the defendants are the same in both cases. The defendants Ernest A. Kraft, Phillip Buffington, J. D. Maness, Glynn L. Cook, Earl B. Goolsby, Sr., H. B. Cooper, and Ernest Perkins are the aldermen of the City of Canton. The defendant Canton Municipal Democratic Executive Committee is a body organized pursuant to the laws of the State of Mississippi and is charged under Miss. Code Ann. § 3152 (1956) with the responsibility of conducting municipal Democratic primary elections for the nomination of municipal officers. The defendant Charles Riddell is the chairman of the Canton Democratic Executive Committee. The defendant Canton Municipal Election Commission is a body organized under the laws of the State of Mississippi and is charged pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. § 21-11-13 (1972) with the responsibility for conducting municipal general elections in that municipality. The defendants R. H. Shackleford, Dr. George Carmichael and William B. Crawford are the members of the Canton Municipal Election Commission. All of these individual defendants are residents of the City of Canton.
The City of Canton is a code charter municipality as provided in Miss. Code Ann. § 21-3-1 (1972). The form of government which this authority requires can vary according to the population of the municipality, and according to the 1960 census Canton had a total population of 9,707 people. With this form of government and the population figure noted above, Canton up to and including the municipal election of 1961 elected five aldermen, one from each of four wards with one alderman elected from the city at-large. The authority for this procedure was Miss. Code Ann. § 3374-36 (1956), the predecessor statute of the present day statute which outlined the procedure noted above for code charter municipalities having a population of less than 10,000.
In 1962 the Mississippi legislature amended Miss. Code Ann. § 3374-36 (1956) which is now Miss. Code Ann. § 21-3-7 (1972) and as applied to Canton and other cities having less than 10,000 population in the 1960 census, required that one alderman live in each of the four wards, but that each alderman would be elected by the municipality at-large. The statute also required that in cities with more than 10,000 population in the last census, one alderman live in each of six wards, but be elected by the municipality at-large, with a seventh alderman living anywhere in the municipality and being elected from the municipality at-large.
The 1965 elections in Canton were not held in accordance with the 1962 amendment because of ignorance of its passage, but the primary and general elections of 1969 and 1973 were conducted pursuant to the amended statute, as was the 1974 special election. Prior to the date of the holding of the 1969 Democratic Municipal Primary in Canton, a group of black citizens filed an action in this Court seeking to enjoin the holding thereof because three changes in voting procedures had been made and not submitted to the United States Attorney General in accordance with the provisions of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c. After this Court granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the holding of the municipal election pending disposition of the case on the merits, the full three-judge court permitted the Canton elections to be held. Perkins v. Matthews, 301 F.Supp. 565 (S.D.Miss.1969). The 1969 municipal elections were then held in accordance with the 1962 amendments to the statute as outlined above. This decision was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and that Court reversed this Court and held that the...
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