Robinson v. Kimbrough

• Decision Date: 30 June 1980
• Docket Number: No. 78-2237,78-2237
• Citation: 620 F.2d 468
• Parties: Julia ROBINSON, Willie D. Rutledge, Willie James Brown, Nancy Scott, Otis Curry, George Copeland, Gloria A. Brown, Individually and on behalf of all those similarly situated; and Harris County Civil League, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. William H. KIMBROUGH, James McMichael, Homer A. Page, H.S. Taylor, Steve M. Harris, and Howard M. Waddle, Individually and as Jury Commissioners of Harris County, Georgia, and all their agents, employees and successors in interest, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 468

620 F.2d 468

Julia ROBINSON, Willie D. Rutledge, Willie James Brown Nancy Scott, Otis Curry, George Copeland, Gloria A. Brown Individually and on behalf of all those similarly situated and Harris County Civil League, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. William H. KIMBROUGH, James McMichael, Homer A. Page, H.S Taylor, Steve M. Harris, and Howard M. Waddle, Individually and as Jury Commissioners of Harris County, Georgia, and all their agents, employees and successors in interest, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 78-2237.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

June 30, 1980.

Laughlin McDonald, Neil Bradley, H. Christopher Coates, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Champion & Champion, F.L. Champion, Jr., Columbus, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

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

Before WISDOM, POLITZ and SAM D. JOHNSON, Circuit Judges.

SAM D. JOHNSON, Circuit Judge.

This is a jury discrimination case. At issue on this appeal is the order of the district court denying plaintiffs an award of attorneys' fees pursuant to the Civil Rights Attorneys' Fees Award Act of 1976 (the Act). ¹ Under the Act, prevailing plaintiffs should recover reasonable attorneys' fees for vindicating the public's interest in an end to discrimination unless special circumstances render an award unjust. The trial court's determination in this regard is to be reversed by this Court only if an abuse of discretion is found. Criterion Club of Albany v. Board of Commissioners of Dougherty County, 594 F.2d 118, 120 (5th Cir.1979); Morrow v. Dillard, 580 F.2d 1284, 1300 (5th Cir.1978). This Court finds that the trial court abused its discretion in the instant case.

The Act provides for the allowance of attorneys' fees to "the prevailing party." In assessing whether plaintiffs are prevailing parties under the Act, an examination must be made of the chronological sequence of events and the substance of plaintiffs' litigation. In this case, the assessment of plaintiffs' rights and the accompanying examination are complicated by the fact that this is the second time that plaintiffs' civil rights action has appeared before this Court. Thus, it is necessary to discuss the initial proceedings in the district court and the first appeal to this Court before addressing the issues raised in the instant case. In addition, certain changes occurred in the law and in the defendants' conduct during the pendency of this lawsuit, and those changes affected the resolution of the issues raised on the first appeal. After outlining the chain of events affecting this case, this opinion will consider the question of this Court's power to address the attorneys' fee issue and the resolution to be made.

Initial Proceedings in the Federal District Court

The Harris County Civil League and other named plaintiffs filed their complaint on March 8, 1974 seeking revision of the grand jury and traverse jury lists of Harris County, Georgia. The defendants were sued individually and in their official capacity as jury commissioners of Harris County, Georgia law obligated the jury commissioners to compile and revise the jury lists at least biennially and those lists then served as the source for the names of county citizens to be summoned for duty on both the grand and petit juries. Ga.Code Ann. Sec. 59-106.

Before the complaint was filed in 1974, the defendants had taken little or no action to remedy the low percentages of blacks and women on the county jury lists. In 1974 the population of Harris County was approximately 40% to 45% black and approximately 50% female. The defendants conceded that from 1969 to 1974 the percentages on the jury lists for blacks was approximately 10% to 15% and for women was approximately 0% to 2%. Despite these statistics, the jury commissioners stated that they were unaware of any constitutional defects in jury lists before plaintiffs brought their jury discrimination action. ²

In their complaint, plaintiffs sought relief from several separate, but related violations of their constitutional rights. First, plaintiffs claimed that the jury commissioners were arbitrarily and systematically excluding blacks and women from the jury lists. Second, they attacked the constitutionality of those sections of the Georgia Code that permitted differential treatment of women with regard to jury service. Ga.Code Ann. Sec. 59-112(b), 59-112(d), 59-124, and 79-207. Third, plaintiffs questioned the constitutionality of the methods used by the jury lists. As relief, plaintiffs asked the district court to declare invalid the state statutes and order the jury commissioners to correct the underrepresentation of blacks and women on the jury lists.

In April 1974, one month after plaintiffs filed their complaint, the jury commissioners asked a Harris County judge to exercise his authority under Sec. 59-106 to order them to recompile the jury lists to provide a more representative cross section of the citizens of Harris County, even though they had revised these jury lists less than a year before to meet the biennial requirement. The county judge granted the jury commissioners' request for an irregularly scheduled revision of the jury lists, and pursuant to his order, they promptly revised the lists.

The results of this revision were submitted to the federal district court on May 1, 1974. They showed a remarkable increase on the traverse jury lists of blacks to 34.01% and of women to 44.97% and a similar remarkable increase on the grand jury lists of blacks to 28.40% and of women to 34.22%. Upon receipt of the results of the 1974 revision, the federal district court approved the revised lists, held that plaintiffs' challenges to the Georgia jury selection laws failed to raise substantial constitutional questions, and dismissed plaintiffs' complaint. Plaintiffs then timely appealed to this Court from the district court's order dismissing their complaint.

Almost two years after plaintiffs had filed their appeal from the district court's order dismissing their complaint in December 1974, the panel opinion of this Court was issued on October 4, 1976. Robinson v. Kimbrough, 540 F.2d 1264 (5th Cir.1976). During that period of time (from December 1974 to October 1976), the Georgia legislature modified Secs. 59-112(d) and 79-207 and repealed Sec. 59-124 to delete the privilege of women to opt out of jury service upon request. Ga.Acts 1975, pp. 779-780. This legislation took effect in April 1975 several months after the Supreme Court issued on January 21, 1975, its decision in Taylor v Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975). ³

Before the panel issued its opinion, the jury commissioners in 1975 again revised the composition of the county jury lists. As noted above, the Georgia statutes required that the jury lists be reconstituted biennially. Pursuant to this biennial requirement, the jury commissioners revised the composition of the jury lists in 1975, as the last regularly scheduled recomposition was in 1973. The results of the 1975 recomposition were announced to the panel members of this Court during oral argument. The parties thereafter stipulated to the results of the 1975 revision and the stipulation was filed as part of the record on the first appeal. These 1975 revised figures revealed an increase in the percentages of blacks of approximately five-tenths of 1% and that of women under five-tenths of 1%. It is noted that this increase is relatively insignificant, compared to that previously obtained.

The panel took into consideration the 1975 recomposition of the jury lists and the 1975 changes in the Georgia statutes. On the basis of the changes in state law, the panel held moot plaintiffs' challenges to the constitutionality of Secs. 59-112(d), 59-124, and 79-207. The panel also concluded that the 1975 revisions in the jury lists showed "that the racial composition of the jury lists ... is within constitutional limits [and] ... that the methods by which the commissioners select names for the jury lists are within constitutional bounds." Robinson v. Kimbrough, supra, 540 F.2d at 1265. The panel thus affirmed the district court's rulings on the racial composition of the jury lists and on the jury commissioners' methods of selecting names for those lists. The panel further held that plaintiffs' challenge to Sec. 59-112(b) was substantial because of the Supreme Court's decision in Taylor v. Louisiana in January 1975. Accordingly, the panel reversed the district court's decision to dismiss plaintiffs' attack on Sec. 59-112(b), the Georgia statutory provision that permitted state judges to excuse from jury duty housewives with children 14 years of age or younger. This determination by the panel resulted in a partial affirmance and in a reversal of the district court's judgment with a remand to the district court for further consideration of the constitutionality of Sec. 59-112(b).

The first appeal was thereafter heard and considered by this Court en banc, and this Court's opinion was announced on September 1, 1977. Robinson v. Kimbrough, 558 F.2d 773 (5th Cir.1977) (en banc). This Court's en banc opinion affirmed that portion of the panel's opinion holding that the 1975 revised lists were within constitutional bounds and declaring moot plaintiffs' challenges to the constitutionality of Georgia statutes Secs. 59-112(d), 59-124, and 79-207. This Court's en banc opinion also vacated those parts of the district court dismissal order and that portion of the panel opinion relating to Sec. 59-112(b), which allowed women to be excused from jury duty on a showing that they were housewives with children of 14 years of age or younger. That decision was based upon plaintiffs' failure to name as defendants the judges of the state courts who were charged with the statutory duty to handle excuses from those women. The final disposition by the en banc Court on the Georgia statute also necessarily...