Wesch v. Folsom
| Decision Date | 27 October 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-6607,93-6607 |
| Citation | 6 F.3d 1465 |
| Parties | Paul Charles WESCH, Plaintiff-Appellee, Michael Figures; Charles Steele; Garria Spencer, Intervenors-Plaintiffs-Appellants, Darryl Sinkfield; Quinton Ross; Bernest Brooks; Rubin McKinnon; Andrew Hayden, Intervenors-Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. James E. FOLSOM, Jr., Governor, State of Alabama; James H. Evans, Attorney General; Jim Bennett, Secretary of State; Lionel W. Noonan, Probate Judge; Harry D'Olive, Probate Judge; Devon Wiggins, Probate Judge; Otha Lee Biggs, Probate Judge; Jerry Bogan, Probate Judge; Clarence Watters, Probate Judge; Tom W. Turner, Probate Judge, all sued in their official or representative capacities only, Defendants, Alabama Democratic Party, Movant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Gregory B. Stein, Mobile, AL, for D. Sinkfield, et al.
J.L. Chestnut, Jr., Selma, AL, for M. Figures, et al.
Armand Derfner, Charleston, SC, for Sinkfield, et al.
Mortimer P. Ames, Robert Marcus Givhan, Courtney W. Tarver-Office of the Atty. Gen. of Alabama, Governor James Folsom and Karen Neal Herrod, Montgomery, AL, for defendant Jim Bennett.
Ferrell S. Anders and David A. Boyett, III, Hamilton, Butler, Riddick, Tarlton & Sullivan, P.C., Mobile, AL, for Paul Charles Wesch.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.
Before ANDERSON and DUBINA, Circuit Judges, and GODBOLD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Appellants, Darryl Sinkfield, et al. ("Sinkfield"), representatives of a class consisting of all African-American citizens of Alabama, appeal the district court's judgment enjoining them from proceeding with congressional redistricting claims filed in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama. We affirm.
This litigation began on September 23, 1991, when Appellee Paul C. Wesch ("Wesch") brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama against the Governor of Alabama and other state officials. Wesch alleged that Alabama's congressional districts were unconstitutionally malapportioned and he sought an injunction prohibiting elections under the existing districts and establishing a remedial redistricting plan. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2284, a three-judge panel was convened to hear the case.
On December 4, 1991, Appellants Michael Figures and Joseph Mitchell ("Figures") moved to intervene on behalf of themselves and all qualified electors who were African-American residents of Alabama ("African-American Intervenors"). Figures's complaint in intervention alleged that Alabama's existing congressional districts violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1973, because they did not "allow for the election of an African-American to Congress from the State of Alabama." (R-2, Doc. 39). The district court granted Figures's motion to intervene and certified the intervenors as a class represented by Figures.
At trial the parties, including the African-American Intervenors, stipulated that the remedial redistricting plan should include a single-member significant majority (65% or more) African-American congressional district. Wesch v. Hunt, 785 F.Supp. 1491, 1493-94, 1498 (S.D.Ala.1992). The parties submitted six proposed redistricting plans to the district court. One of the plans, the Hilliard Plan, contained two majority African-American districts. Neither of those districts, however, would have achieved a 65% or greater African-American majority as called for by the stipulation. "Although [the Hilliard Plan] was submitted by the [African-American] intervenors, they took the position that [it] probably provided obstacles of sufficient nature to cast doubt on their opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in these districts." Id. at 1496.
On March 9, 1992, the district court entered its final judgment. The court (a) declared Alabama's existing congressional districts unconstitutional, (b) enjoined the holding of any further elections under the existing districts, and (c) ordered that congressional elections be held according to the 1992 Alabama Redistricting Plan, both in 1992 and in later years, until "the Alabama Legislature duly enacts a redistricting plan and has the same precleared in accordance with federal law in time for congressional elections to proceed without delay under then applicable state and federal law." Id. at 1501-02. The 1992 Alabama Redistricting Plan adopted by the court, which was essentially the plan proposed by Wesch, created one single-member significant majority African-American district with an African-American population of 67.53%. The district court stated that because the parties agreed in their stipulation to the creation of a single-member significant majority African-American district, it did not need to decide whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required the creation of such a district in Alabama at that time. Id. at 1499.
At the time of the district court's final judgment, the Alabama Legislature had enacted a congressional redistricting plan that had not yet been precleared by the Attorney General pursuant to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The legislature's plan also contained one majority African-American district. On March 27, 1992, the Attorney General refused to preclear the legislature's plan because it failed to explain why a second majority African-American district was not created. The African-American Intervenors then filed a Rule 60(b) motion requesting that the district court modify its plan to include a second majority African-American district. The district court denied the motion. On appeal, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the district court's refusal to modify its plan. Figures v. Hunt, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1233, 122 L.Ed.2d 640 (1993). 1 In the meantime, the 1992 congressional elections were held according to the district court's original 1992 Alabama Redistricting Plan.
Subsequently, Sinkfield filed a class action suit seeking legislative redistricting in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama 2 on behalf of himself and as the representative of a class composed of all African-American citizens of Alabama ("the Sinkfield class"), the same class represented by Figures in Wesch v. Hunt. On February 23, 1993, the Supreme Court decided Growe v. Emison, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1075, 122 L.Ed.2d 388 (1993). On April 5, 1993, the Sinkfield class amended its complaint to include Congressional redistricting claims. The Sinkfield class's amended complaint asserted that the Alabama Legislature's failure to redraw Alabama's congressional districts deprived it of certain rights guaranteed under the Alabama and United States Constitutions and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act 3 and requested that the state court implement a redistricting plan of its own. The apparent basis for these claims is that Alabama has only one majority African-American congressional district. The Sinkfield class, maintaining that Growe v. Emison declared state courts to be the virtual equivalent of state legislatures in redistricting matters, urged the state court to read the three-judge district court's injunction in Wesch as "encouraging congressional redistricting by the Government of Alabama, that is, by both the legislative and judicial branches." In effect, the Sinkfield class asked that the 1992 Alabama Redistricting Plan approved by the federal panel be replaced by a plan approved by the Alabama state court.
Wesch then moved the district court to stay the state court proceedings, to the extent that they related to congressional redistricting, pursuant to the All-Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1651, and the provisions of the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2283, that specifically empower a federal court to enjoin state court proceedings in aid of its jurisdiction or to protect or effectuate its judgments. On July 13, 1993, the district court granted Wesch's motion and enjoined any further proceedings in the state court case with regard to congressional redistricting. The district court explained that it was simply enforcing the order of the three-judge district court "enjoin[ing] the conduct of any congressional election after 1992 held pursuant to a plan other than the 1992 Alabama Redistricting Plan adopted by this court except in the event 'the Alabama Legislature duly enacts a redistricting plan and has the same precleared in accordance with federal law in time for congressional elections.' " Wesch v. Hunt, No. 91-0787, 1993 WL 468747 (S.D. Ala. July 13, 1993) (emphasis added). The district court rejected the argument that Growe v. Emison required it to allow the parties to proceed with their congressional redistricting suit in state court, stating that
Growe does not stand for the proposition that a State court is a co-equal branch of government with respect to overturning a districting plan enacted by a federal court and affirmed on appeal by the United States Supreme Court prior to any effort by such state court to address any issue relating to reapportionment and redistricting. By contrast, Growe stands only for the proposition that "[i]n the reapportionment context, the Court has required federal judges to defer consideration of disputes involving redistricting where the State, through its legislative or judicial branch, has begun to address that highly political task itself."
Id., quoting Growe v. Emison, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 1080. The Sinkfield class timely appealed to this court. On August 13, 1993, this court granted a stay of the district court's injunction pending this appeal.
The grant of an injunction is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Centel Cable Television Co. v. Thos. J. White Dev. Corp., 902 F.2d 905, 910 (11th Cir.1990); United States v. Alabama, 791 F.2d 1450, 1458 (11th Cir.1986); United States v. Board of Ed., 332 F.2d 40, 45-46 (5th Cir.1964). 4 However, if the trial court...
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