Johnson v. DeSoto County Bd. of Com'rs
| Decision Date | 23 January 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-3448,94-3448 |
| Citation | 72 F.3d 1556 |
| Parties | 106 Ed. Law Rep. 64 Brenda M. JOHNSON; William Guice; Oliver Flemming; Jessie Alford, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DeSOTO COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, R.V. Griffing, in his official capacity as Chairperson of the DeSoto County Board of Commissioners; John Ed. Johnson, in his official capacity as member of the DeSoto County Board of Commissioners; Paul Whitlock, in his official capacity as member of the DeSoto County Board of Commissioners; Ed W. Horton, in his official capacity as a member of the DeSoto County Board of Commissioners; Raymond Stewart, in his official capacity as a member of the DeSoto County Board of Commissioners, Defendants, DeSoto County School Board, Defendant-Appellant, Rodney Hollingsworth, in his official capacity as Chairperson of the DeSoto County School Board; Phyllis Nesmith, in her official capacity as a member of the DeSoto County School Board; James Westberry, in his official capacity as a member of the DeSoto County School Board; Ronnie Allen; Marion Carroll, in her official capacity as a member of the DeSoto County School Board; David Thornton, in his official capacity as Supervisor of Elections for DeSoto County, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Robert M. Fournier, Sarasota, FL, and Katharine I. Butler, Univ. of S. Carolina Law School, Columbia, SC, for Appellant.
Neil Bradley, Atlanta, GA, Cristina M. Correia, Tallahassee, FL, and Robert McDuff, Jackson, MS, for Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Before BIRCH and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and SIMONS *, Senior District Judge.
The DeSoto County, Florida School Board appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment against the School Board and in favor of the plaintiffs who are four black registered voters in DeSoto County. The district court held that the election of the School Board members through an at-large voting system, established by a 1947 Florida Act, now codified as Florida Statutes Secs. 230.08 and 230.10, violates Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1973 (West 1994).
The district court's judgment is based upon its holding that the Florida Legislature's intent in enacting the 1947 Act was to discriminate against blacks. That holding is in turn premised upon the court's conclusion that two decisions of this Court involving the same state statute but different counties preclude as a matter of law any contrary finding about the intent behind the legislation. After setting out the facts and procedural history of this case in Part I of this opinion, we explain in Part II.A why the two prior decisions of this Court that the district court relied upon do not foreclose the intent inquiry in this case. The district court also held that a showing of intent to discriminate establishes a violation of Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act regardless of whether the plaintiffs prove any discriminatory results, and in Part II.B we explain why that holding is error. We then discuss in Part II.C the role that a finding of intent to discriminate does play in a Sec. 2 determination. Part III contains our conclusion.
In 1947, the Florida Legislature adopted an at-large system for the election of county school boards. Fla.Stat. Secs. 230.08 & 230.10. Although the legislature amended the statute in other respects in 1955 and 1969, it retained the at-large election system. Fla.Stat. Secs. 230.08 & 230.10 (1993). Pursuant to the amended 1947 Act, the DeSoto County School Board consists of five members elected at-large from five residential districts.
The plaintiffs filed suit against the School Board claiming that DeSoto County's at-large method of electing school board members violated Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting minority voting strength. 1 The district court granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and enjoined DeSoto County from conducting at-large school board elections. Johnson v. DeSoto County Bd. Comm'rs, 868 F.Supp. 1376 (M.D.Fla.1994). The district court based its judgment upon a holding that "binding precedent" precluded the School Board from litigating the issue of intent, and a holding that intent alone is sufficient to establish a claim under Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Id. at 1379. In the alternative, the district court held that even if some proof of discriminatory results is necessary to establish a Sec. 2 violation, where intent to discriminate exists such results "need only be minimal," and the court concluded that the undisputed evidence established what it described as the requisite "minimal current results." Id. at 1380.
The School Board appeals the district court's judgment, contending that the district court erred in holding: (1) that two prior Eleventh Circuit precedents precluded the School Board from litigating whether there was discriminatory intent behind the 1947 Act; (2) that a violation of Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be established by evidence of discriminatory intent alone, without a showing of discriminatory results; and (3) in the alternative, that once intent to discriminate is established, "current minimal" discriminatory results is all that plaintiffs need show in order to prevail.
We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant. E.g., Flores v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 47 F.3d 1120, 1122 (11th Cir.1995). We independently review the record that was before the district court, utilizing the same standards applied in the district court. E.g., Real Estate Fin. v. Resolution Trust Corp., 950 F.2d 1540, 1543 (11th Cir.1992).
The district court held that this Court's decisions in McMillan v. Escambia County, Florida, 638 F.2d 1239 (5th Cir.1981), vacated in part on other grounds, 466 U.S. 48, 104 S.Ct. 1577, 80 L.Ed.2d 36 (1984), and NAACP v. Gadsden County School Board, 691 F.2d 978 (11th Cir.1982), are binding precedent on the issue of the intent behind the 1947 Act, which foreclose further consideration of that issue in this case. The district court stated:
[T]he McMillan [v. Escambia County ] Court found the [at-large election] statutes unconstitutional. The Gadsden [County] Court followed the precedent. An appellate court's finding that a statute [enacted with discriminatory intent] is unconstitutional is an interpretation of constitutional law, which is binding precedent and is therefore relevant and applicable in the instant case.
DeSoto County, 868 F.Supp. at 1379. That reasoning is based upon a misreading of our holdings in Escambia County and Gadsden County. 2
In both Escambia County and Gadsden County, the plaintiffs brought suit against their local school board, arguing that the system of electing the school board violated the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. 3 As part of their Fourteenth Amendment claim, the plaintiffs in both of those cases were required to prove: (1) the existence of discriminatory intent behind the 1947 Act, which authorized the challenged election system, and (2) that the operation of the challenged election system has led to discriminatory results in that county. Gadsden County, 691 F.2d at 981; Escambia County, 638 F.2d at 1243. Proving that the 1947 Act was enacted with discriminatory intent was one part of the plaintiffs' cases in those cases, but the plaintiffs did not have to show, nor did they show, that the legislation itself was unconstitutional in all of its applications, i.e. as it applied in every county of the state.
Furthermore, both Escambia County and Gadsden County treated the district court's findings regarding the intent behind the 1947 Act as factual determinations, not legal conclusions. Gadsden County, 691 F.2d at 981-82 (); Escambia County, 638 F.2d at 1243 (); see also Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613, 622-23, 102 S.Ct. 3272, 3278, 73 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1982) (). In both Escambia County and Gadsden County, the panels held based upon the evidence presented in those cases that there was discriminatory intent behind the 1947 Act. The Escambia County panel upheld--held not to be clearly erroneous--a district court's finding, based upon the evidence presented in that case, that there was discriminatory intent behind the 1947 Act. 638 F.2d at 1245-46. The Gadsden County panel, one year after Escambia County had been decided, again applied the "clearly erroneous" standard; it reversed as clearly erroneous in light of the evidence presented in that case, a district court's factfinding that there was no discriminatory intent behind the 1947 Act. 691 F.2d at 982. 4
The Gadsden County Court's treatment of the intent issue is itself inconsistent with the district court's conclusion in this case that the Gadsden County and Escambia County decisions establish as a matter of law that there was discriminatory intent behind the 1947 Act. If a prior panel's holding regarding the intent behind the 1947 Act established as a matter of law what that intent was, then the Gadsden County Court would have treated the Escambia County holding regarding the 1947 Act's intent as binding precedent. It did not. Instead, Gadsden County examined the intent issue as a question of fact, to be decided based upon the evidence in the case before it, which...
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