Gustafson v. Johns, CIV.A. 05-00352-CGC.

• Decision Date: 22 May 2006
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A. 05-00352-CGC.,CIV.A. 05-00352-CGC.
• Citation: 434 F.Supp.2d 1246
• Parties: Lionel GUSTAFSON, et al. Plaintiffs, v. Adrian JOHNS, etc., et al., Defendants, and Seth Hammett, Lowell Barron, and Hank Sanders, Defendant-Intervenors.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Alabama

434 F.Supp.2d 1246

Lionel GUSTAFSON, et al. Plaintiffs, v. Adrian JOHNS, etc., et al., Defendants, and Seth Hammett, Lowell Barron, and Hank Sanders, Defendant-Intervenors.

No. CIV.A. 05-00352-CGC.

United States District Court, S.D. Alabama. Southern Division.

May 22, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mark Montiel, Mark G. Montiel, P.C., James H. McLemore, Christopher William Weller, Capell & Howard, P.C., Montgomery, AL, for Plaintiffs.

John J. Park, Jr., Office of the Attorney General, State of Alabama, Montgomery, AL, for Defendants.

Larry T. Menefee, Robert David Segall, Shannon L. Holliday, Copeland, Franco, Screws & Gill, P.A., Robert David Segall, Algert S. Agricola, Jr., Slaten & O'Connor, P.C., Montgomery, AL, Edward Still, Edward Still Law Firm, James U. Blacksher, Birmingham, AL, for Intervenors Defendants.

ORDER

This action is the latest chapter in a long history of legal challenges to Alabama's 2001 legislative redistricting. Plaintiffs, nineteen Alabama voters, challenge the redistricting plans, Acts 2001-727 and 2001-729, on several grounds. They assert that the plans (1) violate the constitutional guarantee of one-person-one-vote; (2) constitute illegal partisan gerrymandering; and (3) violate Plaintiffs' First Amendment right to freedom of association. The issue before this Court¹ is whether this action is barred by earlier challenges to the redistricting plans. We hold that this action is barred under the doctrine of res judicata.

I. BACKGROUND

This story begins with the previous Alabama legislative redistricting plan, created after the 1990 census. In 1993, the Circuit Court of Montgomery County approved a consent decree, adopting a redistricting plan. Sinkfield v. Bennett, CV-93-689-PR (Cir. Ct. Montgomery County Aug. 13, 1993). Mark Montiel, Plaintiffs' attorney in the present case, represented John Rice and Camilla Rice, who intervened in Sinkfield. The state court retained jurisdiction over the 1993 consent decree.

On January 24, 2001, Bert Jordan and Al Agricola joined Montiel as counsel for the Rices in Sinkfield. They petitioned the Montgomery County Circuit Court to vacate the consent decree because the Alabama Legislature soon would be drawing new districts in accordance with the 2000 census data. They also requested that the court relinquish the jurisdiction it had retained over future redistricting efforts. However, the Montgomery Circuit Court denied the Rices' motion and Montiel, Jordan, and Agricola filed an appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the Alabama Legislature did not pass new redistricting plans during the 2001 Regular Session, which ended on May 21. On June 15, 2001, Barnett v. Alabama was filed in federal court, in the Southern District of Alabama. The Barnett plaintiffs were Les Barnett, a member of the Republican Party's State Executive Committee; Terry Lathan, who at one time was the treasurer of the Mobile County Republican Party (and is wife of Jerry Lathan, Vice Chairman for the First and Second Congressional districts in the State Republican Party); and Percy Johnson, who testified that he was asked to be a plaintiff because he was "one of the leading African-American Republicans in Mobile." Johnson was recruited by Representative Chris Pringle. Initially, the plaintiffs' attorneys in Barnett were Benjamin Ginsburg and Matthew Stowe from Washington, DC and Paul Wesch of Mobile, but they were joined by the time of the most relevant events here by Bert Jordan and Al Agricola.² The Barnett complaint alleged that the Alabama Legislature was unlikely to redraw its districts in time for the 2002 election and asked that a three-judge court assume jurisdiction over the process.

On June 21, 2001, Mark Montiel filed a federal lawsuit, Montiel v. Davis, alleging the failure of the Legislature to redraw the districts of the Legislature, Congress, and the State Board of Education. Mark Montiers father, Gonzalo Fitch Montiel, was the sole plaintiff in the original complaint. Montiel was filed in the same federal court, and was assigned to the same judge, as Barnett. On June 25, 2001, the Alabama Legislature convened a special session to redraw the legislative districts. On July 2, 2001, Acts 2001-727 (Senate plan) and 2001-729 (House plan) passed the Legislature. The Governor signed the bills on July 3. The redistricting plans were submitted to the Department of Justice ("Dal') for preclearance, as required under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c. On the same day that the Legislature passed the redistricting statutes, July 2, another state lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County. Webb v. Alabama was brought by Democratic interests and sought a declaratory judgment that the new plans were constitutional. On July 12, the Alabama Attorney General moved to dismiss the complaints in Barnett and Montiel, on the grounds that the Legislature had enacted redistricting statutes that had been submitted for preclearance. This Court, acting through Judge Hand as a single judge, ordered the plaintiffs in both cases to respond to the Attorney General's motion to dismiss.

In response to this order, Mark Montiel amended the complaint in Montiel and directly challenged the constitutionality of the new House and Senate redistricting plans. The Barnett plaintiffs' response did not directly attack the new statutes but, rather, argued that the new statutes were not yet enforceable under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act and noted that the Alabama Supreme Court now had jurisdiction over the redistricting process in the appeal from the Montgomery Circuit Court's refusal to vacate the 1993 consent decree in Sinkfield.

On August 9, 2001, Mark Montiel filed yet another lawsuit. Rice v. English, filed in state court, challenged only the Senate plan. Rice alleged that the Senate plan violated the Alabama Constitution. The plaintiffs were John Rice, William McCall Harris, a former Executive Director of the State Republican Party, and Harris's mother, Patricia Wood.

On September 25, 2001, Judge Hand, still acting as a single judge, held a joint hearing in Barnett and Montiel. Mr. Jordan, now having joined the team of plaintiffs' lawyers in Barnett, reiterated the argument that a three-judge federal court need not take action until the plans had been precleared and the Alabama Supreme Court had resolved questions about whether the plans violated the state constitution. Mr. Jordan—pursuing a strategy to have the Alabama Supreme Court assume responsibility for the redistricting litigation and rule first on the constitutionality of the districts under the Alabama Constitution— requested that Judge Hand certify the state law questions to the Alabama Supreme Court as "one way to help the process along...." Mr. Montiel endorsed Jordan's suggestion that the federal court certify the state law issues to the Alabama Supreme Court.

A few weeks later, on October 9, 2001, Montiel, Jordan, and Agricola filed a petition for writ of prohibition, mandamus, or other extraordinary writ, Ex Parte Rice, in the Alabama Supreme Court. The three lawyers were acting as co-counsel for John and Camilla Rice, and they asked the Alabama Supreme Court to prevent Webb from proceeding in the Montgomery Circuit Court until the Alabama Supreme Court ruled on the appeal in Sinkfield. The Ex Parte Rice petition referred to Barnett, but not to Montiel.

On October 1, 2001, the same three-judge court was designated to sit in Barnett and Montiel. Shortly thereafter, the Alabama Attorney General filed notice that the DOJ had precleared Act 2001-727 (the Senate plan). On October 23, 2001, the court asked the parties to advise the court on what effect the preclearance of the Senate plan and "possible preclearance" of the House plan would have on both cases.

The Barnett plaintiffs argued that DOJ preclearance changed nothing, and renewed their request for certified questions to the Alabama Supreme Court. The Barnett plaintiffs also informed the court that, on October 19, 2001, the Alabama Supreme Court had rejected the appeal by the Rice intervenor-plaintiffs in Sinkfield v. Bennett, but that Ex Parte Rice was still pending in the Alabama Supreme Court. They urged the federal court to continue to stay its hand and certify questions to the Alabama Supreme Court which still had jurisdiction of the redistricting issues.

Mark Montiel took a similar position in Montiel v. Davis urging the federal court to stay its hand and certify the redistricting issues of state law to the Alabama Supreme Court. In addition, however, the Montiel briefs made clear that the plaintiffs were also challenging the new, 2001 redistricting plans on both state and federal grounds.

On November 7, 2001, the Alabama Attorney General notified the court that the House plan also had been precleared by the DOJ. That same day, the three-judge court dismissed Barnett as moot, holding that the plaintiffs presented no specific challenge to the 2001 redistricting statutes. The Barnett plaintiffs did not file a motion to reconsider, an appeal, nor did they ask for leave to file an amended complaint challenging the new statutes.

On November 8, 2001, the Alabama Supreme Court denied the Ex Parte Rice petition for writ of prohibition. On December 21, 2001, Montiel filed his third amended complaint in Montiel v. Davis, adding new plaintiffs. The new plaintiffs were John Rice, Camilla Rice, Sheldon Day, John Lang, and Bobby Humphryes, a Republican member of the Alabama House of Representatives.

The state trial court granted summary judgment against the plaintiffs in Rice v. English, and the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed on May 24, 2002. 835 So.2d 157 (Ala.2002). On July 8, 2002, this Court, acting through a three-judge panel, granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants and defendants-intervenors in Montiel. 215 F.Supp.2d 1279 (S.D.Ala. 2002). The plaintiffs did not appeal.

The present lawsuit, brought on behalf of...