Charles Myers v. John Anderson Charles Myers v. William Howard Charles Myers v. Robert Brown 10
| Decision Date | 21 June 1915 |
| Docket Number | No. 8,9,Nos. 8,No. 10,No. 9,8,10,s. 8 |
| Citation | 35 S.Ct. 932,59 L.Ed. 1349,238 U.S. 368 |
| Parties | CHARLES E. MYERS and A. Claude Kalmey, Plffs. in Err., v. JOHN B. ANDERSON. CHARLES E. MYERS and A. Claude Kalmey, Plffs. in Err., v. WILLIAM H. HOWARD. CHARLES E. MYERS and A. Claude Kalmey, Plffs. in Err., v. ROBERT BROWN. , and 10 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. William L. Marbury, Ridgley P. Melvin, and William L. Rawls for plaintiffs in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 369-373 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Edgar H. Gans, Morris A. Soper, and Daniel R. Randall for defendants in error.
[Argument of Counsel from page 374 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:
These cases involve some questions which were not in the Guinn Case, No. 96, just decided [238 U. S. 347, 59 L. ed. ——, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 926]. The foundation question, however, is the same; that is, the operation and effect of the 15th Amendment.
Prior to the adoption of the 15th Amendment the privilege of suffrage was conferred by the Constitution of Maryland of 1867 upon 'every white male citizen,' but the 15th Amendment by its self-operative force obliterated the word 'white,' and caused the qualification therefore to be 'every male citizen,' and this came to be recognized by the court of appeals of the state of Maryland. Without recurring to the establishment of the city of Annapolis as a municipality in earlier days, or following the development of its government, it suffices to say that before 1877 the right to vote for the governing municipal body was vested in persons entitled to vote for members of the general assembly of Maryland, which standard, by the elimination of the word 'white' from the Constitution by the 15th Amendment embraced 'every male citizen.' In 1896 a general election law comprising many sections was enacted in Maryland. Laws of 1896, chap. 202, p. 327. It is sufficient to say that it provided for a board of supervisors of elections in each county to be appointed by the governor, and that this board was given the power to appoint two persons as registering officers and two as judges of election for each election precinct or ward in the county. Under this law each ward or voting precinct in Annapolis became entitled to two registering officers. While the law made these changes in the election machinery it did not change the qualification of voters.
In 1908 an act was passed 'to fix the qualifications of voters at municipal elections in the city of Annapolis and to provide for the registration of said voters.' Laws of 1908, chap. 525, p. 347. This law authorized the appointment of three persons as registers, instead of two, in each election ward or precinct in Annapolis, and provided for the mode in which they should perform their duties, and conferred the right of registration and consequently the right to vote on all male citizens above the age of twenty-one years who had resided one year in the municipality and had not been convicted of crime, and who came within any one of the three following classes:
The three persons who are defendants in error in these cases applied in Annapolis to the board of registration to be registered as a prerequisite to the enjoyment of their right to vote at an election to be held in July, 1909, and they were denied the right by a vote of two out of the three members of the board. They consequently were unable to vote. Anderson, the defendant in error in No. 8, was a negro citizen who possessed all the qualifications required to vote exacted by the law in existence prior to the one we have just quoted, and who on January 1, 1868, the date fixed in the third class in the act in question, would have been entitled to vote in Maryland but for the fact that he was a negro, albeit he possessed none of the particular qualifications enumerated by the statute in question. Howard, the defendant in error in No. 9, was a negro citizen possessing all the qualifications to vote required before the passage of the act in question, whose grandfather resided in Maryland and would have been entitled to vote on January 1, 1868, but for the fact that he was a negro. Brown, the defendant in error in No. 10, also had all the qualifications to vote under the law previously existing, and his father was a negro residing in Maryland who would have been able to vote on the date named but for the fact that he was a negro. The three parties thereupon began these separate suits to recover damages against the two registering officers who had refused to register them on the ground that thereby they had been deprived of a right to vote secured by the 15th Amendment, and that there was liability for damages under § 1979, Rev. Stat., Comp. Stat. 1913, § 3932, which is as follows:
'Every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any state or territory, subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof, to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution and Laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.'
The complaints were demurred to and it would seem that every conceivable question of law susceptible of being raised was presented and considered, and the demurrers were overruled, the grounds for so doing being stated in one opinion common to the three cases (182 Fed. 223). The cases were then tried to the court without a...
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...alleges have violated his civil rights. See Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908); Myers v. Anderson, 238 U.S. 368, 35 S.Ct. 932, 59 L.Ed. 1349 (1915). VI. Delaware Law Plaintiff alleges that D.L.S. erroneously determined that he had falsified his law school admiss......
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