Childrey v. Bennett

Citation997 F.2d 830
Decision Date05 August 1993
Docket NumberNo. 92-6895,92-6895
PartiesPearlie M. CHILDREY; Gwendolyn Patton, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Jim BENNETT, in his Official Capacity as Secretary of State for the State of Alabama, Defendant-Appellee.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Lewis Pitts, Durham, NC, for plaintiffs-appellants.

James H. Evans, Jeffrey Harris Long, Attys. Gen., Montgomery, AL, for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Before BIRCH, Circuit Judge, CLARK, Senior Circuit Judge, and HOEVELER *, Senior District Judge.

HOEVELER, Senior District Judge:

This appeal involves a factual question: whether the Appellant, Gwendolyn Patton, submitted the minimum number of voter signatures required by Alabama law for her to have been named on the ballot as an independent candidate for the November 1992, election for the United States Senate. Having found no clear error in the district court's conclusion that Patton failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she submitted the required number of signatures to the Secretary of State within the deadline established by Alabama law, we AFFIRM the decision of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

On July 22, 1992, Gwendolyn Patton, a black woman, filed an action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama challenging the constitutionality of an Alabama election law which required independent candidates to amass signatures from one per cent of the voters who cast votes in the last gubernatorial election. Case No. 92 V-885-N. Patton sought to have her name placed on the ballot as an independent candidate in the November 1992, election for the United States Senate. Under the law that she sought to overturn, Section 17-7-1(a)(3) of the Code of Alabama, Patton was required to submit a petition containing approximately 26,000 signatures by the August 31, 1992, filing deadline. The suit was resolved after the State conceded that such disparity of treatment between independent and minor party candidates was unconstitutional; accordingly, on August 31, 1992, the date of the petition filing deadline, the State and Patton entered into a consent decree and order signed by the district court which reduced the number of required signatures to 12,158, the same number required for minor party candidates to appear on the ballot.

Late in the afternoon of August 31, Patton submitted to the Elections Division of the Secretary of State a jumbled box of petition sheets which she felt contained more than 12,158 signatures. The petition sheets were disorganized because she had dropped the box while carrying it to the election office. Steven Prince and Vicki Balough of the Secretary of State's office received the petition, which was then stored in the office of the Elections Division Director, Jerry Henderson.

Prince, Balough, and Henderson each separately counted Patton's petition sheets, with Balough counting twice. The number of signatures counted differed on each of the four counts, but none totaled the required 12,158 signatures. The counts reached were as follows: 11,785 (Prince), 11,792 (Balough), 11,577 (Balough), and 11,791 (Henderson). 1 Based on the four counts tallied by its officials, the Elections Division informed Patton on September 8, 1992, that her petition did not contain the required number of signatures and that her name would not be on the ballot.

On October 1, 1992, Patton filed the instant lawsuit against the then Secretary of State of Alabama, Billy Joe Camp 2, alleging that the State's failure to place her on the ballot violated the consent decree and order of August 31, 1992, as well as Patton's rights under the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Pearlie M. Childrey, a registered voter, joined Patton as a Plaintiff, claiming a violation of rights protected by the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. Plaintiffs' complaint alleged that Patton had filed the requisite number of signatures, and it sought an order requiring the Secretary of State to place Patton's name on the November 1992, ballot as an independent candidate.

Upon agreement of the parties, on October 8, 1992, the district court held an expedited non-jury trial of the case. United States District Court Judge Robert E. Varner presided over the trial and ruled from the bench, finding that Plaintiffs had failed to carry their burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence that Patton had submitted the required 12,158 signatures. A written opinion followed on October 9, 1992, at which time judgment was entered for the State.

In explaining the basis for its ruling, the district court relied principally on the four counts of Patton's petition which were made by State officials. The district court further ruled that Plaintiffs had failed to substantiate the additional allegations they had made regarding the adequacy of the security procedures employed by the Elections Division to prevent unauthorized persons from tampering with candidates' petitions. Patton claimed that numerous pages of her petition had disappeared from the Elections Division office prior to the State counts, but the district court found that "there was no direct evidence of such tampering ..." Order of October 9, 1992, at page 4. Rather, the district court concluded that it was Patton's disorganization, and the attendant confusion caused by her rush to submit the required number of signatures by the filing deadline, which led to her mistaken belief that her petition contained the requisite number of signatures:

Ms. Patton counted once, but she counted at a time when there was mass confusion about her. She admitted that she was looking for only 12,000 signatures when 12,158 were required and that she continued to attempt to file after ... [the deadline passed]. It is easy to see how Ms. Patton might have been confused in the matter as compared to the people who made the four State counts in an unhurried manner. This Court is of the opinion that Plaintiff did count a number of signatures very carefully before the mass confusion which occurred on the afternoon of August 31, 1992. However, Ms. Patton admitted that her supporters were trying valiantly to raise 12,000 signatures on that afternoon and that she did not actually know that 12,158 were required by this Court's Order at that time.

Id. at 7-8. The State therefore was found to have complied with the consent decree and order and to have committed no constitutional violation in denying Patton a place on the November 1992, election ballot.

II. DISCUSSION

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a) provides that a district court's findings of fact in actions tried without a jury may not be reversed unless clearly erroneous. 3 Under the law of this Circuit, "[a] finding is clearly erroneous and reversible under Rule 52(a) only when 'the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.' " Lincoln v. Bd. of Regents, 697 F.2d 928, 939-940 (11th Cir.1983), cert. den., 464 U.S. 826, 104 S.Ct. 97, 78 L.Ed.2d 102 (1983), quoting Williamson v. Brown, 646 F.2d 196, 200 (5th Cir.1981), quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948). "If the district court's findings of fact are 'plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety,' the court of appeals must accept them even if it is 'convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently.' " United States v. Fidelity Capital Corp., 920 F.2d 827, 836 n. 36 (11th Cir.1991), quoting Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985).

Plaintiffs argue that reversal is warranted because the district court committed two clear errors in reaching its factual findings. First, the trial judge is said to have improperly discounted Patton's testimony as to the number of signatures she submitted and to have given undue credit to the testimony of officials from the Elections Division. Second, Plaintiffs claim that the district court failed to give proper weight to evidence suggesting that the Elections Division failed to maintain proper security measures to deny unauthorized persons access to petitions. Patton claims that numerous pages of her petition were surreptitiously removed from the Election Division offices prior to the time that the State counted the petition and that these additional signatures would have brought the State's counts over the required 12,158 signatures. Though these two allegations are intertwined, as both directly concern the district court's ultimate finding in favor of the State, we address each allegation separately for the sake of clarity.

a. The evidence regarding the number of signatures submitted by Patton

At trial, Patton testified that prior to filing her petition,...

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