Southern Christian Leadership Conference v. Evans

• Decision Date: 18 March 1992
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 88-H-462-N.
• Citation: 785 F. Supp. 1469
• Parties: SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE OF ALABAMA, on Behalf of its members and on Behalf of a state-wide class of black voters, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Attorney General James H. EVANS, et al., Defendants, United States of America, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

785 F. Supp. 1469

SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE OF ALABAMA, on Behalf of its members and on Behalf of a state-wide class of black voters, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Attorney General James H. EVANS, et al., Defendants United States of America, Amicus Curiae.

Civ. A. No. 88-H-462-N.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, N.D.

March 18, 1992.

J. Richard Cohen and Elizabeth Johnson, Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiffs.

Simon, Wood & Crane, James C. Wood, Mobile, Ala., for defendant L.W. Noonan.

Balch & Bingham, David R. Boyd, Montgomery, Ala., Maynard, Cooper, Frierson & Gale, Fournier J. Gale, III, Birmingham, Ala., Atty. Gen. of Alabama's Office, Walter S. Turner, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen. and Asst. Attys. Gen. Ronald C. Forehand, Mark Givhan and Susan E. Russ, Montgomery, Ala., for all other defendants.

Blackwell & Keith, Cartledge W. Blackwell, Jr., Selma, Ala., additional counsel, for defendant John W. Jones, Jr.

John R. Dunne, Asst. Atty. Gen., Civ. Rights Div., Steven H. Rosenbaum, Sheila Delaney and Rebecca J. Wertz, Voting Section, CRD, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington D.C., U.S. Atty. M.D.Ala., Montgomery, Ala., for United States, amicus curiae.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

HOBBS, District Judge.

This action was filed in May 1988 by black voters within various judicial circuits and districts in Alabama. Defendants are the Alabama Attorney General, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, the Alabama Secretary of State, and various probate judges. Plaintiffs claim that the system for electing judges in Alabama leaves black voters without an equal opportunity "to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice" in violation of the Voting Rights Act as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. Plaintiffs also claim that the system is in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

Jurisdiction is invoked pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343, and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1973j(f) and 1983.

On June 7, 1989, the court rejected defendants' contention that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not apply to judicial elections, SCLC v. Siegelman, 714 F.Supp. 511 (M.D.Ala.1989). After the Court of Appeals' decision in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Clements, 914 F.2d 620 (5th Cir.1990) (en banc), this Court stayed these proceedings (with the exception of discovery) to allow defendants to take an interlocutory appeal. When the Supreme Court of the United States held that judicial elections are covered by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Chisom v. Roemer, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2354, 115 L.Ed.2d 348 (1991); Houston Lawyers' Ass'n v. Attorney Gen. of Texas, ___ U.S. ____, 111 S.Ct. 2376, 115 L.Ed.2d 379 (1991), defendants withdrew their appeal, and this case, which had been assigned to Judge Dubina, was reassigned to this Judge when Judge Dubina went to the Court of Appeals. The case was tried in December 1991.

For the reasons hereinafter stated, this Court concludes that the system of electing trial judges in Alabama does not deny black voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect judges of their choice, nor does such system violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

Alabama has a unified judicial system of trial and appellate courts. The trial court of general jurisdiction is the circuit court with the district court being a trial court of limited jurisdiction. Circuit courts are divided into forty judicial circuits designated by number. Each circuit has one or more counties. At least one of the challenged circuits has as many as twenty-four circuit judges and some circuits have as few as two. Each county has at least one district judge. The number of circuit and district judges is set by the Legislature with the advice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Judges are elected at large from their respective circuits or districts. Candidates for judicial office in circuits or districts with more than one judge must designate the numbered post for which they are a candidate.

Plaintiffs contend that the at-large, numbered position election system for trial judges dilutes black voting strength in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in ten circuits and in four multidistrict judge districts. Plaintiffs also claim that the numbered place feature of the elections has been maintained for racially inspired reasons and has a discriminatory effect, thus violating the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as amended, provides:

(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b) of this section.

(b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered. PROVIDED, that nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

BACKGROUND OF PRESENT CHALLENGE

In Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986), the Supreme Court looked at a challenged redistricting plan for the election of state legislators in North Carolina. It held that in order to prove a violation of amended Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act on the basis of at-large elections, a minority group would be required to show: (1) that the minority group is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single member district; (2) that the minority possesses political cohesion; (3) that the majority group votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate.

If plaintiffs are successful in proving the three prerequisites, the Supreme Court has directed that the court evaluate the "totality of circumstances," based upon a practical evaluation of the past and present realities to determine whether the political process is equally open to minority voters. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 79, 106 S.Ct. at 2781.

As already noted, courts and judges were divided as to whether amended Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act applied to judicial elections. In two cases decided on the same day, June 20, 1991, Chisom v. Roemer, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2354, 115 L.Ed.2d 348 (1991); Houston Lawyers' Ass'n v. Attorney Gen. of Texas, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2376, 115 L.Ed.2d 379 (1991), the Supreme Court rejected the contention that judicial elections were exempt from the commands of Section 2. In both cases, however, the Court pointed out the importance of considering in the "totality of circumstances" the interest of the state in its determination of its election system for judges. In Chisom, the Supreme Court stated that it did "not address any question concerning the elements that must be proved to establish a violation of the Act or the remedy that might be appropriate to redress a violation if proved." With clear prophecy, the Supreme Court in Chisom said: "Even if serious problems lie ahead in applying the `totality of circumstances' described in § 2(b), that task, difficult as it may prove to be" must be attempted to carry out the mandate of the broadly worded statute. Id. 111 S.Ct. at 2368. At this time, therefore, the Supreme Court has not attempted to guide trial courts in how to evaluate the circumstances, or what remedy is appropriate in judicial elections.

The task of determining whether the prerequisites for a violation of the Voting Rights Act are present where the challenged elections are for legislative positions or city or county governing bodies is far easier than where the challenge is to the election of judges, and the task of fashioning an appropriate remedy is also different and far more difficult. For example, it can be presumed that in a legislative election there are large numbers of potential candidates from minority citizens as well as majority. Since only lawyers are eligible to serve as judges, the number of eligible lawyers is a factor that must be considered. Moreover, trial judges essentially make their decisions alone. Where judges are elected from districts which have been crafted to contain a high percentage of blacks to assure the election of black candidates (plaintiffs' expert testified that sixtyfive percent black population is necessary), minority interests will have far less impact in the majority of judicial elections because black voters within the crafted district will be participating in the election of only the judge or judges elected in such district.

The volume of cases is also an appropriate consideration in determining the size of circuits, not merely the number of voters in the circuit. The Supreme Court has clearly held that the one-man, one-vote analysis does not apply to judicial elections, Wells v. Edwards, 409 U.S. 1095, 93 S.Ct. 904, 34 L.Ed.2d 679 (1973); Chisom, 111 S.Ct. 2354.

A variety of views has been expressed by the Supreme Court Justices as how to decide whether a violation of Section 2 has occurred in legislative elections. Justice Brennan, writing the plurality opinion...