Wilson v. Jones

• Decision Date: 29 March 1999
• Docket Number: No. Civ.A. 96-1052-BH-M.,Civ.A. 96-1052-BH-M.
• Citation: 45 F.Supp.2d 945
• Parties: Dean Butch WILSON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. John W. JONES, Jr., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Alabama

45 F.Supp.2d 945

Dean Butch WILSON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. John W. JONES, Jr., et al., Defendants.

No. Civ.A. 96-1052-BH-M.

United States District Court, S.D. Alabama, Northern Division.

March 29, 1999.

Algert S. Agricola, Jr., Algert S. Agricola, Jr., (See above), Montgomery, AL, Albert L. Jordan, Wallace, Jordan, Ratliff & Brandt, Birmingham, AL, for Dean Butch Wilson, plaintiff.

Algert S. Agricola, Jr., Algert S. Agricola, Jr., Albert L. Jordan, (See above), for Johnny Middlebrooks, plaintiff.

Cartledge W. Blackwell, Jr., Selma, AL, John W. Kelly, III, Selma, AL, for John W. Jones, Jr., in his official capacity as Probate Judge of Dallas County, Alabama, defendant.

William H. Pryor, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, Office of Attorney General, Montgomery, AL, John R. Park, Jr., Office of the Attorney General, Criminal Appeals Division, Montgomery, AL, Stanley E. Graham, Waller, Lansden, Dortch & Davis, PLLC, Nashville, TN, for W.A. Kynard, in his official capacity as Circuit Court Clerk of Dallas County, Alabama, defendant.

Bruce Boynton, Selma, AL, for Erskine Minor, in his official capacity as a Dallas County Commissioner, defendant.

William H. Pryor, Jr., Bruce Boynton, Stanley E. Graham, (See above), for Perry Varner, in his official capacity as a Dallas County Commissioner, defendant.

Bruce Boynton, (See above), for Roy Moore, in his official capacity as a Dallas County Commissioner, defendant.

William H. Pryor, Jr., Stanley E. Graham, (See above), for Barbara Sweat, in her official capacity as a member of the Dallas County Board of Registrars, defendant.

William H. Pryor, Jr., Stanley E. Graham, (See above), for Thomas Craig, in his official capacity as a member of the Dallas County Board of Registrars, defendant.

Patricia Nicole Beyer, U.S. Attorneys Office, Mobile, AL, Deanne E.B. Ross, Barry Weinberg, Elizabeth nmi Johnson, Voting Section, Civil Rights Div., Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for USA, defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

HAND, Senior District Judge.

This voting rights litigation came on for trial before the Court on May 11-14, 1998. As of September 1, 1998, following completion of the trial transcript and the time allotted by the Court, the parties had submitted their respective post-trial briefs (Docs. 123, 128, and 132) and the Court took the matter under submission.¹ The Court has also taken under submission plaintiffs' supplemental evidence, plaintiffs' motion (Doc. 134) to file same being hereby GRANTED, together with the United States' response to same (Doc. 135).

Plaintiffs filed this action on October 25, 1996, seeking an end to the 1998 injunction which, under the guise of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibited the probate judge of Dallas County from serving as chairman ex officio of the Dallas County Commission and yet simultaneously required the election of five commissioners from single member districts to serve as the Dallas County Commission.² The United States and the County Commission defendants argue not only that the plaintiffs lack standing, even as citizens and registered voters of Dallas County, to challenge the election scheme imposed by the courts, but that "the Eleventh Circuit did not change the `size' of the Dallas County Commission" and thus did not exceed its authority to remedy violations of the Voting Rights Act as recognized inter alia in such cases as Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 114 S.Ct. 2581, 129 L.Ed.2d 687 (1994).³ The defendants also argue, as appears often to be the inclination of our present times, that even if the Eleventh Circuit exceeded its authority as now clearly defined by the Supreme Court in Holder, such intrusion into the legislative domain of state and county government should be ignored because plaintiffs have failed to justify the retroactive application of this principle of law. In other words, the United States and the County Commission defendants once again espouse the principle that "the end justifies the means." This Court is thus called upon to once more grapple with the nebulous authority of the federal judiciary to dictate not only the manner in which a County governing body is elected but also the form of that governing body.

For the reasons stated below, the Court concludes that the continuation of an election scheme for the Dallas County Commission which was crafted and imposed by the judiciary to remedy a vote dilution violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act but which impermissibly altered the size of that governing body by expelling the chairman ex-officio simply because he was also the Probate Judge who must be elected at-large and by creating a previously unauthorized commissioner position is both illegal and unjustified under the applicable law as well as the circumstances of this case. Plaintiffs are therefore entitled to the relief they seek, namely the termination of the 1988 injunction and an order directing that a new districting plan be established pursuant to which four members are to be elected from single-member districts and the Probate Judge shall resume his position as chairman ex-officio with the sole duty to preside over the Commission's meetings and cast a vote in the event of a tie as established by Act No. 328 of the Alabama Legislature of 1900-1901.

I. STANDING

The United States contends that the plaintiffs "lack standing in the absence of their assertion of a claim that the current method of electing county commissioners is illegal or otherwise violates plaintiffs' legally protected rights." United States' Proposed Findings and Conclusions at p. 101, ¶ 2. Plaintiffs' standing, however, is established on both counts.

The illegality of the present method of electing the Dallas County commissioners cannot seriously be questioned in light of such decisions as Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 114 S.Ct. 2581, 129 L.Ed.2d 687 (1994) (rejecting the contention that the size of a government body, including a County Commission, may be subject to a § 2 vote dilution challenge); Nipper v. Smith, 39 F.3d 1494, 1532 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc) (holding that "federal courts may not mandate as a section 2 remedy that a state or political subdivision alter the size of its elected bodies"), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1083, 115 S.Ct. 1795, 131 L.Ed.2d 723 (1995); and White v. Alabama, 74 F.3d 1058, 1073 (11th Cir.1996) (quoting Nipper's pronouncement concerning the federal courts' lack of authority to alter the size of elected bodies). The present districting plan, imposed by the Eleventh Circuit in 1988 and only revised since that time to correct population malapportionments based on 1990 census data, requires the election of five members of the Dallas County Commission from single member districts. The contention that this five single-member districting plan did not increase or alter the size of the Dallas County Commission is specious. The Alabama legislature expressly dictated that the Dallas County Commission be composed of four members with the Probate Judge acting as chairman ex officio. It is thus beyond comprehension that the United States and the County Commission defendants could maintain the position that the present method of electing the Dallas County commissioners is not an expansion of the prior system of government and thus illegal under Holder and its progeny.

It is also specious to contend that plaintiffs have no standing to challenge the 1988 injunction which altered the democratically established system of government for the Dallas County Commission and thus affected their voting rights. See e.g., Clark v. Putnam County, 168 F.3d 458 (11th Cir.1999) (Recognized the standing of voters in a suit challenging the constitutionality of their county commission districts); Meek v. Metropolitan Dade County, 985 F.2d 1471, 1480 (11th Cir. 1993) (Recognized the private right of individuals "to vindicate important personal interests in maintaining the election system that governed their exercise of political power, a democratically established system that the district court's order had altered [in that] they alleged a tangible actual or prospective injury and did not merely challenge unlawful conduct in the abstract."). The Court agrees that plaintiffs' interest is sufficient to question whether a particular court order, the implementation of which clearly affects their voting rights, exceeds the authority conferred by the Voting Rights Act. As stated above, the Eleventh Circuit itself recognized in White not only that "federal courts may not mandate as a section 2 remedy that a state or political subdivision alter the size of its elected bodies" but that even a consent decree "that provides a remedy agreed to by some, but not all, of the parties cannot affect the rights of a dissenting party." 74 F.3d at 1073. Plaintiffs' voting rights simply may not be usurped by the judiciary, or the United States government, even under the guise of remedying a § 2 vote dilution violation. Cf. also, Dillard v. City of Greensboro, 74 F.3d 230, 235 (11th Cir.1996) (recognizing that, "[w]hen a federal court reviews a redistricting plan, it intrudes `on the most vital of local functions'.").

Although the United States admits that the plaintiffs "were not parties to United States v. Dallas County Commission," it nonetheless also contends that plaintiffs can only protect their voting rights by seeking to intervene in that case and only then attempt to collaterally attack the 1988 injunction. United States' Proposed Findings and Conclusions at p. 101, ¶ 1. The purpose of this supposition is presumably an attempt to subject plaintiffs to a catch-22 argument that, should they succeed in so intervening, they would then be bound by the law of the case doctrine which would prohibit the setting aside of the Eleventh Circuit's districting plan unless "a prior judgment upon which it [was] based has been reversed or otherwise vacated, or if it is no longer equitable." Id. at p. 102, ¶ 3....