Lane v. Wilson, 1635.
Citation | 98 F.2d 980 |
Decision Date | 19 September 1938 |
Docket Number | No. 1635.,1635. |
Parties | LANE v. WILSON et al. |
Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit) |
Charles A. Chandler, of Muskogee, Okl., for appellant.
Gordon Watts, of Wagoner, Okl., and Joseph C. Stone, of Muskogee, Okl. (Charles G. Watts, of Wagoner, Okl., on the brief), for appellees.
Before LEWIS, PHILLIPS, and BRATTON, Circuit Judges.
Appellant, a negro man, brought this action against the three appellees to recover from them $5,000, for that, as averred, they prevented his registration as an elector at the general election in November, 1934, because of his race and color. He was born in Alabama, but his residence has been in the village of Red Bird, Wagoner County, Oklahoma, since 1908 under claim of citizenship. He testified he voted in Oklahoma in 1910 and 1912, but did not vote thereafter because he did not register. He claims all the qualifications of an elector in Oklahoma (Oklahoma Constitution, Article 3, Section 1, Okl.St.Ann.Const. art. 3, § 1), and there is no denial of his right to vote if registered.
The complaint is an attack on the Oklahoma statute providing for registration as a condition precedent to the right to vote. The act was passed in February, 1916. It is said that prior thereto Oklahoma had no requirements of registration throughout the state. Anticipating the election to be held on November 6, 1934, appellant on October 24, 1934, in company with several other negroes applied for registration to Marion Parks, registrar in appellant's voting precinct in Wagoner County, and was refused. Appellant testified that Parks told him he "was instructed by the higherups not to register any colored people"; that Parks stated the higherups were Jess Wilson, county registrar, and John Moss, county judge. Three days thereafter he filed this suit. At the conclusion of all the evidence each side moved for an instructed verdict, and the Court ruled in favor of appellees.
The registration provisions and requirements applicable here are found in Volume 1, Article 3, Chapter 29, Oklahoma Statutes 1931, § 5651 et seq., 26 Okl.St.Ann. § 71 et seq. It is referred to in the act itself as providing for a permanent record of all electors in the state, and it defines elections:
"to mean every general, primary, regular, or special election held in this state, or in any county, city, town, township, school district, or precinct for the nomination or election of federal, state, district, county, municipal, township, school district, or precinct officers, including United States Senators and members of Congress, and upon any issue submitted to the people of the State or any municipality or subdivision of the State." Section 5651, 26 Okl.St. Ann. § 71.
Section 5652, 26 Okl.St.Ann. § 72, is this:
"It shall be the duty of every qualified elector in this state to register as an elector under the provisions of this Act, and no elector shall be permitted to vote at any election unless he shall register as herein provided, and no elector shall be permitted to vote in any primary election of any political party except of the political party of which his registration certificate shows him to be a member."
The next section (section 5653, 26 Okl. St.Ann. § 73) provides that the Secretary of the State Senate shall within 60 days after the act becomes effective appoint one qualified elector in each county as county registrar, and the county registrar so appointed shall immediately appoint precinct registrars in each precinct within his county, who shall be a qualified elector and who shall be the official registration officer in his precinct. He is empowered to administer oaths and to exercise all the authority conferred upon precinct registrars by the act. County registrars hold office at the pleasure of the Secretary of the State Senate, and the precinct registrars hold office at the pleasure of the county registrars.
Section 5654, 26 Okl.St.Ann. § 74, provides:
Section 5655, 26 Okl.St.Ann. § 75, makes it the duty of the county registrar to furnish at the expense of the county the proper registration certificate books and supplies; provides how they shall be kept; that they shall be delivered to the registrar in each precinct who shall receipt for them, the receipts to be held at the office of the county registrar; provides how the registration books shall be marked, the form and contents of each registration certificate and duplicate of each certificate issued to be retained in said books after they are filled in by the precinct registrar with indelible pencil, the issued registration certificate to be signed by the precinct registrar.
Section 5657, 26 Okl.St.Ann. § 77, provides in part:
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...276, 59 S.Ct. at page 876. (Emphasis added.) 9 In its decision of Lane v. Wilson the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, 98 F.2d 980, 984, stated: "It may be, and we take it as true, that inasmuch as the so-called grandfather clause in the constitution of Oklahoma had not been d......
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Lane v. Wilson
...against negroes in the administration of Section 5654 and denied that the legislation was in conflict with the Fifteenth Amendment. 10 Cir., 98 F.2d 980. The defendants urge two bars to the plaintiff's recovery, apart from the constitutional validity of Section 5654. They say that on the pl......
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