Parnell v. Rapides Parish School Bd., 76-4176

• Decision Date: 17 November 1977
• Docket Number: No. 76-4176,76-4176
• Citation: 563 F.2d 180
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit
• Parties: Thomas R. PARNELL et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees-Cross Appellants, v. Terry L. FARRAR et al., Intervenors.

Page 180

563 F.2d 180

Thomas R. PARNELL et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees, v. RAPIDES PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees-Cross Appellants, v. Terry L. FARRAR et al., Intervenors.

No. 76-4176.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Nov. 17, 1977.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Feb. 3, 1978.

Stanley A. Halpin, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs-appellants-cross appellees.

John C. Hoyle, Atty., Civil Rights Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., amicus for U. S. A.

James J. Brady, Alexandria, La., for Henry, Lindsay, Matthews & Hathorn.

Richard B. Crowell, Alexandria, La., for other interested parties.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before WISDOM, GEWIN and AINSWORTH, Circuit Judges.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

This is another chapter in the extended story of reapportionment in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. In this class action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the district court found that the apportionment scheme used to select parish school board and police jury members, instituted by a federal court in 1971 in response to an earlier suit, could not legally be maintained. The trial judge ordered that both bodies be elected from nine single-member districts. The existing boards were to remain in office until the next scheduled elections. For the school board, those elections, delayed pending the resolution of the suit, will occur next summer. The police jury election is not scheduled until 1980. The plaintiffs and the police jury appealed; the school board did not. We affirm the district court's holding but modify the remedy ordered.

I.

Rapides Parish, located in central Louisiana, had a population of 118,000 in 1970. Approximately 28 percent of that population were black; 72 percent were white. Alexandria, the parish seat, is the only large town in the parish. Most of the black population is concentrated in or around Alexandria.

Rapides Parish is governed by a police jury, a Louisiana local governing body similar to a county commission. This body acts as the parish legislature, but also historically has exercised various administrative functions such as the maintenance and construction of roads, bridges, and public buildings. See La.Const. Art. 14, Sec. 3; La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 33:1221, et seq. (West Supp.1977). The parish is divided into 11 wards. Until 1968 one police juror was elected from each ward. The wards varied tremendously in population. Thus, in 1970, Wards One and Eight had a combined population of 64,659, while Wards Two, Three, Four, and Six had a combined population of only 14,073.

In 1968 suit was filed against the police jury, charging that the apportionment violated the one-man one-vote doctrine. After extensive litigation the district court approved a plan submitted by the local authorities. LeBlanc v. Rapides Parish Police Jury, July 26, 1971, W.D.La., No. 13,715. The parish was divided into four districts, each composed of a combination of wards. District A, composed of Wards One and Eight, elected ten members of the police jury and of the school board. Ward One consisted of Alexandria, Ward Eight of an area near Alexandria. District A was 37 percent black by population. It contained 72 percent of the black population of the entire parish. District B elected five members, District C two members, and District D one member. Those three districts were predominantly white.

In 1973 the United States sued to set aside the LeBlanc plan. The government contended that it was invalid because it lacked the approval of the Attorney General, as required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c (1970). The district court held that Section 5 of the Act did not apply to plans submitted in response to court orders. United States v. Rapides Parish School Board, Oct. 25, 1973, W.D.La., No. 19,209.

Also in 1973 a group of residents filed a class action, seeking a change in the LeBlanc plan. The plaintiffs charged that the LeBlanc plan diluted black voting strength in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and also violated the one-man one-vote rule. In May 1974 the district court struck down the LeBlanc plan. Bradas v. Rapides Parish Police Jury, 1974, W.D.La., 376 F.Supp. 690. The trial judge found that District A concentrated black strength in a multi-member district, making it difficult, if not impossible, for that strength to elect any officials. The judge ordered that single-member districts be substituted. All four plans submitted by the parties were "either incomplete and unsupported, or were constitutionally unacceptable". 376 F.Supp. at 694. The trial judge then drafted his own plan for nine single-member districts. Elections under that plan were held for both bodies in late 1974. Two blacks were elected to the school board, and two to the police jury.

The defendants appealed. In February 1975 this Court reversed the trial court's decision. Bradas v. Rapides Parish Police Jury, 5 Cir. 1975, 508 F.2d 1109. The Court concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to carry their burden of proof under the standards governing dilution of minority voting strength. ¹ The district court's order was vacated, and that court was required to reinstitute the LeBlanc plan in time for the next election. The Court, however, declined to disturb the tenure of the recently-elected school board and police jury of nine members each.

On remand the district court approved a settlement entered into by the sitting nine member bodies, under which they would continue as nine member groups indefinitely. The Court of Appeals granted a writ of mandamus and ordered the judge to withdraw his approval of this settlement. The LeBlanc plan was reinstituted in September 1975. In December elections for the 18 member police jury were held. The two black incumbents from the nine member jury lost, and no other black candidates won.

On April 2, 1976, the present suit was filed. ² Three black residents of the parish filed it as a class action on behalf of all the black residents. They sued the police jury, the school board, and all the individual members of each. They charged that the LeBlanc plan violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by impermissibly diluting their voting strength, and by deviating from the one-man one-vote principle. Elections to replace the sitting nine member school board with the LeBlanc eighteen member school board were scheduled for August 14. The plaintiffs and the school board sought a preliminary injunction. The district judge stated that, in light of East Carroll Parish School Board v. Marshall, 1976, 424 U.S. 636, 96 S.Ct. 1083, 47 L.Ed.2d 296 aff'g on other grounds, Zimmer v. McKeithen, 5 Cir. 1973 (en banc), 485 F.2d 1297, the plaintiffs would probably succeed on the merits. Nevertheless, he felt bound by the writ of mandamus from this Court and would not grant the requested injunction. An appeal followed, and the district judge was freed from the effects of the writ of mandamus. The judge then enjoined the election.

The district court issued its opinion on September 30, 1976. Parnell v. Rapides Parish School Board, 1976, W.D.La., 425 F.Supp. 399. The court held that the LeBlanc plan was invalid on two independent grounds. First, it violated the limits of judicial discretion in formulating reapportionment plans by permitting multi-member districts. Second, the plan had the effect of diluting black voting strength. The judge ordered that the nine member plan, developed by Judge Scott in the Bradas case, be implemented. The school board elections, enjoined by the court since July 1976, were to be conducted under that plan. The police jury was also to be elected under that plan, but not until the next regularly scheduled election in 1980.

The plaintiffs appealed, asserting that the judge erred by not ordering an immediate police jury election. The police jury, and seventeen of its eighteen members, cross-appealed, asserting that the LeBlanc plan was valid, that this suit was barred by res judicata, and that the district court abused its discretion in reducing the size of the police jury. The school board did not appeal.

II.

The district court's first ground for its decision was that intervening decisions have revealed the LeBlanc plan to be an inappropriate judicial remedy. The district judge relied upon the Supreme Court's decision in East Carroll Parish School Board v. Marshall, 1976, 424 U.S. 636, 96 S.Ct. 1083, 47 L.Ed.2d 296. The Court's per curiam opinion stated:

(W)hen the United States district courts are put to the task of fashioning reapportionment plans to supplant concededly invalid state legislation, single-member districts are to be preferred absent unusual circumstances. (citations omitted). As the en banc opinion of the Court of Appeals amply demonstrates, no special circumstances here dictate the use of multi-member districts. Thus, we hold that in shaping remedial relief the District Court abused its discretion in not initially ordering a single-member reapportionment plan.

424 U.S. at 639-40, 96 S.Ct. at 1085. The Court recently reiterated this position in Connor v. Finch, 1977, 431 U.S. 407, 415, 97 S.Ct. 1828, 1834, 52 L.Ed.2d 465, 474, holding that a multi-member plan should be ordered by a court only where it "articulates . . . 'a singular combination of unique factors' that justifies a difference". This Court has recognized the effect of East Carroll Parish on the limits of district court power. In Wallace v. House, 5 Cir. 1976, 538 F.2d 1138, 1140-41, on remand from, 1976, 425 U.S. 947, 96 S.Ct. 1721, 48 L.Ed.2d 191 vacating, 5 Cir. 1975, 515 F.2d 619, we voided a district court plan which provided at-large councilmanic elections.

The defendants did not argue to the district court that unique factors existed in Rapides Parish to justify a multi-member district. Nor did they so argue here. The clear directive of the Supreme...