United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit



## FILED

September 28, 2004

Charles R. Fulbruge III

Clerk IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

_____________________

No. 03-30866

_____________________

WILLIE SENSLEY; WILLIAM WASHINGTON; RALPH HOLLEY; DAVID WINE,

Plaintiffs - Appellants,

versus

JABO ALBRITTON, In His Official Capacity as a Member of the

Union Parish Police Jury; JOHNNY BUCKLEY, In His Official

Capacity as a Member of the Union Parish Police Jury; KEITH

BYRAM, In His Official Capacity as a Member of the Union

Parish Police Jury; DEWAYNE HILL, In His Official Capacity

as a Member of the Union Parish Police Jury; JERRY HOLSON,

In His Official Capacity as a Member of the Union Parish

Police Jury; ANNA MILSTEAD, In Her Official Capacity as a

Member of the Union Parish Police Jury; JERRY RUGG, In His

Official Capacity as a Member of the Union Parish Police

Jury; DANNY SMITH, In His Official Capacity as a Member of

the Union Parish Police Jury,

Defendants - Appellees.

_________________________________________________________________

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Louisiana

_________________________________________________________________

Before JOLLY, DAVIS, and JONES, Circuit Judges.

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

Residents of Union Parish, Louisiana appeal the dismissal of

their vote dilution challenge under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act to

a redistricting plan for elect ing parish police jury members, a

plan that continued to provide two black-majority districts instead

of expanding to include three. The district court found that the

plaintiffs failed to prove that the African-American population of1 This increase apparently was not equally observed a cross

racial lines; over that same time period, African-American

2 the parish was sufficiently geographically compact to support an

additional black-majority district and, alternatively, found that

the plaintiffs had failed to prove that African-Americans in Union

Parish have less opportunity than other members of the electorate

to participate in the political process and elect representatives

of their choice. At the close of the case, the plaintiffs filed a

motion for the district judge to recuse himself. The motion was

filed under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), § 455(b)(4), and § 455(b)(5)(iii),

alleging that the wife of the federal judge was employed as a state

assistant district attorney in the office that was representing the

defendants. The district judge declined to recuse. Because we

find no error in the district judge’s findings with respect to the

merits of this case and because we find no abuse of discretion in

his declining to recuse himself, we AFFIRM the judgment.

I

Union Parish is a political subdivision of Louisiana, which is

governed by a nine-member Police Jury. Each member is elected from

one of nine, single-member electoral districts. According to the

2000 Census, Union Parish has a population of 22,803 persons

--

69.8% of whom are white and 27.9% of whom are black. Of that total

population, there are 16,952 persons of voting age

-- 73.2% are

white and 24.8% are black. The 2000 Census showed a 10.2% increase

in the total population of Unio n Parish. 1 The increase waspopulation increased by only 0.2%.

2 I n each of these two proposed plans, the third minority

majority district only had African-American populations of 53.97%

and 51.44%.

3 greater in some geographical areas than others, which resulted in

population inequities among the nine dist ricts. A redistricting

was thus required to satisfy the one person, one vote

constitution al standard. Consequently, the Police Jury and the

School Board hired David A. Creed, executive director of the North

Delta Regional Planning and Development District, Inc., to assist

them in re-apportioning the district.

Creed prepared fourteen different proposed redistricting

plans. In twelve of these plans, two of the nine districts were

majority black

-- the same number as under the old plan. Two of

these plans contained three majority-black districts, albeit only

marginally. 2 The Union Parish Police Jury ultimately adopted a

plan that maintained th e existing arrangement of having two

majority-black districts. The adopted plan reflected only minor

changes to the district boundaries under the old plan. In

particular, Police Jury incumbents remained in their same districts

and the districts that were majority-black under the old plan

remained so under the new one.

Following the parish’s adoption of this plan, the plaintiffs

(“the P laintiffs”) in this action brought this suit against the

members of the Police Jury (“the Defendants”), who were sued in4

their official capacity as members of that body. The Plaintiffs

are African-American citizens of Union Parish who are registered to

vote. In addition, one of the Plaintiffs, Willie Sensley, is a

current member of the Police Jury, representing District 1. The

Plaintiffs alleged that the redistricting plan adopted by the

Parish violates § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. §

1973, because, by creating only two instead of three majority-black

electoral districts, it dilutes the voting rights of AfricanAmerican citizens of the Parish.

At a trial held on July 30, 2003, both parties presented the

testimony of fact and expert witness in support of their positions.

The district court took the case under advisement and found in

favor of the Defendants on August 14, 2003. Specifically, the

court found that the Plaintiffs had been unable to make the

required threshold showing of “geographical compactness” under

Thornburg v. Gingles

, 478 U.S. 30 (1986). In the alternative, the

district court found that their case still would fail under the

totality of the circumstances test outlined in Gingles because the

Plaintiffs failed to prove that under the adopted redistricting

plan, A frican-Americans “would have less opportunity than other

members of the electorate to participate in the political process

and elect representatives of their choice.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b).

The Pla intiffs assert three points of error. First, they

conte nd the district court erred in concluding that the AfricanAmerican voting age population was insufficiently compact. Second,5

they argue that the district court erred in concluding that the

redistricting plan did not dilute the voting rights of the AfricanAmericans. Finally, they assert that the district judge abused his

discretion in failing to recuse himself.

II

A

We first t urn to the contention relating to the merits:

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as amended, provides that: “No

voting quali fication 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 o f the United States to

vote on account of race or color....” 42 U.S.C. § 1 973(a). To

establish a § 2 violation, members of the protected class must

demonstrate tha t, based on the totality of circumstances, they

“have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to

participate in the political process and to elect representatives

of their choice.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b); s ee also Gingles

, 478 U.S.

at 47 ("The essence of a § 2 claim is that a certain electoral law,

practice, or structure interacts with social and historical

conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by

black and white voters to elect their preferred representatives.").

In Gingles

, the Supreme Court held that a court should analyze

a § 2 claim under a two-part framework. First, plaintiffs must

satisfy, as a threshold matter, three preconditions. Specifically,6

“[t]he minority group must demonst rate that: (1) it is

sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a

majority in a single-memb er district; (2) it is politically

cohesive; and (3) the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc

to enable it

-- in the absence of special circumstances

-- usually

to defeat the minority's preferred candidates.” Clark v. Calhoun

County, Miss.

, 21 F.3d 92, 94-95 (5 th Cir. 1994). Failure to

establish all three of these elements defeats a Section 2 claim.

Teague v. Attala County, Miss.

, 92 F.3d 283, 287 (5 th Cir . 1996).

Second, if the preconditions are proved, plaintiffs must then prove

that “based on the totality of the circumstances,” they "have less

opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in

the political process a nd to elect representatives of their

choice." Clark , 21 F.3d at 94 (quoting 42 U.S.C. 1973(b)).

Th is court reviews d e novo the legal standards the district

court applied to determine whe ther Section 2 has been violated.

N.A.A.C.P. v. Fordice

, 252 F.3d 361, 364 (5 th Cir. 2001). However,

because Section 2 vote dilut ion disputes are determinations

"peculiarly dependent upon the facts of each case that require an

intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of the contested

electoral mechanisms,” we review the district court's findings on

the Gingles threshold requirements a nd its ultimate findings on

vote dilution for clear error. I d

. at 364-65, (quoting Gingles

,

478 U.S. 30, 79) (quotations removed). We thereby “preserve[] the7

benefit of the trial court's particular familiarity with the

indigenous political reality without endangering the rule of law.”

Gingles

, 478 U.S. a t 79. “[A] finding is clearly erroneous when

although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on

the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction

that a mistake has been made.” H ouston v. Lafayette County, Miss.

,

56 F.3d 606, 610 (5 th Cir. 1995) (quoting Anderson v. C i ty of

Bessemer City , 470 U.S. 564, 573 (1985))(quotations removed).

B

At trial, the parties stipu lated that the second and third

Gingles preconditions are met in the present case. Thus, the

question before the district court was whether the Plaintiffs were

able to establish the first Gingles precondition: that the

African-American population in Union Parish is “sufficiently large

and geographically compact” to constitute a majority of the voting

age population in three single-member districts. G ingles

, 478 U.S.

at 50.

In support of their position, the Plaintiffs offered at trial

two proposed redistricting plans prepared by their expert. Each of

these plans featured alternative redistricting configurations

wherein a third majority-minority district, D istrict 6, was

created. Under these reconfigurations, District 6 would have a

total African-American voti ng age population of 50.5% and 50.1%,

respectively. After analyzing these proposed plans, the district

court concluded that the Plaintiffs were able to satisfy the size8

element of the first G ingles precondition, i.e., they had prove n

that the African-American voting age population of the parish was

large enough to constitute a majority of three configured electoral

districts. However, the court concluded that they were not able to

s atisfy the “geographical compactness” element of that same

precondition. Accordingly, it dismissed their case.

The Plaintiffs contend this conclusion was clearly erroneous.

They argue that the district court’s compactness analysis was

inappropriately narrow, alleging that it focused primarily on the

shape of District 6 when it should have inquired more generally

into whether the reconfigured distr ict had “take[n] into account

traditional districting principles such as maintaining communities

of interest and traditional boundaries.” A brams v. United States

,

521 U.S. 74, 92 (1997) (quotations removed). The Plaintiffs note

that in Lafayette County

, this court criticized a district court’s

narrow application of the compactness standard. There, we stated:

The first Gingles precondition does not

require some aesthetic ideal of compactness,

but simply that the black population be

sufficiently compact to constitute a majority

in a single-member district. Moreover, the

question is not whether the plaintiff

residents' proposed district was oddly shaped,

but whether the proposal demonstrated that a

geographically comp act district c ould be

drawn

. Thus, although the edges of the

plaintiff residents' proposed district look

ragged in places, this does not automatically

mean failure to meet the first Gingles

precondition.

56 F.3d at 611 (citations and quotations removed).9

The Plaintiffs contend the district court in this case

committed a s imilar error, concluding that District 6 was not

geographically compact on the basis of its shape alone.

First, we should note that to the extent the Plaintiffs are

suggesting that Lafayette County stands for the proposition that

the shape of a district is irrelevant, they are misreading the

case. For while L afayette County may have made it clear that a

c ompactness determination should not h inge on the shape of a

district, the shape of a district certainly cannot be disregarded

in a compactness inquiry. In G ingles

, the Supreme Court held that

establishing a Section 2 violation required a plaintiff to prove

that a minori ty population is “ g eographically compact” enough to

constitute an additi onal district. 478 U.S. at 50. T hat is,

“[Section] 2 does not require the state to create, on predominantly

racial lines, a district that is not reasonably compact.” Abrams

v. Johnson

, 521 U.S. 74, 91-21 (1997) (quotations removed); s ee

also Bush v. Vera , 517 U.S. 952, 979 ((1996) (“If, because of the

dispersion of the mino rity population , a reasonably compact

majority-minority district cannot be created, § 2 does not require

a majority-mi nority district....”) (emphasis added). As the

geograp hical shape of any proposed district necessarily directly

relates to the geographical compactness and population dispersal of

the minori ty community in question, it is clear that shape is a

significant factor that courts can and must consider in a Gingles

compactness inquiry.10

The district court in this case gave appropriate weight to the

shape of the district here. Contrary to the Plaintiffs’ implicit

contention, the district court’s determination did not rely only on

the fact that the proposed additional majority-black districts were

not “aesthetically” compact. To be sure, the district court did

find the shape relevant, but only insofar as it was indicative of

the non-compactness of the minority population in those proposed

districts. Moreover, the district court grounded its conclusion on

a number of additional factors, including that both proposed

additional majority-black districts separated distinct communities

and disrupted relationships between incumbents and constituents,

which had existed over the years and continued to exist under the

Defendants’ new plan.

As we have noted, we owe deference to the district court on

these factual issues and none of these findings appear clearly

erroneous to us. As the district court indicated, the primary

obstacle the Plaintiffs face in crafting three “reasonably compact”

majority-black electoral districts is the uneven geographical

dispersal of the African-American population i n Union Parish.

Specifically, in Union Parish, the African-American population is

largely grouped in three distinct locations: in the westnorthwestern portion of the parish, in the Town of Marion (in the

northeastern portion of the parish), and in the Town of Farmerville

(in the southern center of the parish). Of these three areas,

however, only two -- the west-northwest corner of the Parish, and3 The concentration of African-Americans in the west-northwest

corner of the Parish is too far from either of the other two areas,

is separated by too many precincts of high Caucasian concentration,

and in any event, does not contain enough of a surplus of AfricanAmericans of voting age from which to draw additional AfricanAmericans. Accordingly, it remains untouched under each of the

Plaintiffs’ proposed plans.

11 the Town of Farmerville

-- have large enough African-American

populations to constitute a majority of an electoral district that

has some semblance of a center. And, under both the adopted and

former districting scheme, these two areas comprise their own

Police Jury majority-black electoral districts -- Districts 9 and

1, respectively. The Town of Marion also contains a high

concentration of African-Americans of voting age. No one disputes,

however, that its numbers are too small by themselves to constitute

a majority of an electoral district centered around it.

In line with this reality, both proposed plans crafted a third

majority-black district by removing the Town of Marion, in the

north eastern section of the parish, from District 2 and also

carving a portion of Farmerville, in the southern center of the

parish, out of District 1. These two areas of highly-concentrated

African-American population, which are roughly 15 miles apart from

one another, were then linked together by a narrow corridor of land

to form a new District 6. This narrow corridor was carefully drawn

to avoid areas of higher Caucasian population concentration so as

to ensure that African-Americans remained a majority in the

proposed dist rict. 3 The result in each proposed plan was an4 The population dispersal of one of the resulting districts

resembles an electoral barbell: two areas of heavy AfricanAmerican concentration situated at eac h end and a narrow and

sparsely-populated rural corridor running approximately 18 miles

between these two communities, connecting them together. At some

points, this corridor appears to be less than a half-mile wide.

The other proposed District 6 is less narrow overall, but much more

narrow in parts, with some portions only a city block wide.

12 irregularly-drawn District 6 whose extended and distorted shape

--

resulting specifically from excluding non-blacks while

simultaneously adding “excess” b lacks from other communities --

constitutes strong evidence that the black minority populations

contained therein are not “reasonably compact.” 4

But, as noted, the shape of the proposed districts is not the

only factor suggesting that the Afr ican-American population is

insufficiently compact to support three majority-minority electoral

districts in Union Parish. As the district court pointed out, in

order to connect these two towns together, the Plaintiffs were

required to ignore traditional districting principle s such as

maintaining communities of interest and traditional boundaries.

See Abrams , 521 U.S. at 91 (“[T]he § 2 compactness inquiry should

take into account traditional distric ting principles such as

maintaining communities of interest and traditional boundaries.")

(quotations omitted). For example, the district court noted that

recrafting District 6 required the Plaintiffs to lump together two

groups of African-Ameri can citizens who were from two distinct

communities

-- the Towns of Marion and Farmerville

-- which are

separat ed by considerable distance (approximately 18 miles) and5 One of the proposed versions of District 6 split the town of

Marion in two as well.

6 Because we have concluded that the district court committed

no clear error i n finding that the Plaintiffs had failed to meet

the Gingles threshold, we do not need to address the court’s

alternativ e holding that the Plaintiffs failed to prove vote

dilution under a Gingles totality of the circumstances analysis.

13 share few community interests. In addition, each of the proposed

plans split the Town of Farmerville in half, igno ring that

traditional municipal boundary and disrupting the core of the

preexisting electoral district (a black majority district), which

had recognized that boundary. 5 Finally, because both of the

proposed plans require the serious reshaping of several Police Jury

districts located in the central portion of Union Paris h, the

existing relationship between incumbents and constituents would be

significantly disturbed.

For these reasons, the district court’s conclusion that the

Plaintiffs failed to prove that the African-American population of

Union Parish was insufficiently compact was not clearly erroneous.

Because the failure to satisfy each of the Gingles prec onditions

defeats a Section 2 claim, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal

of the Plaintiffs’ vote dilution claims. 6 T eague

, 92 F.3d at 287.

III

We now turn to the Plaintiffs’ con tention that the district

judge who heard this case, Robert G. James, abused his discretion

by failing to recuse himself under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), § 455(b)(4)

and § 455(b)(5)(iii). The Plaintiffs raised this objection14

following the distr ict court’s entry of judgment against them,

after discovering that Judge James’ s pouse was an Assistant

District Attorney in the office of District Attorney Robert Levy,

whose office also represented the Defendants in this case.

A motion to disqualify brought under 28 U.S.C. § 455 is

“committe d to the sound discretion of the district judge.”

Chitimacha Tribe v. Harry L. Laws Co.

, 690 F.2d 1157, 1166 (5 th Cir.

1982). And, accordingly, this recusal motion will be reviewed for

abuse of discretion. W einberger v. Equifax, Inc.

, 557 F.2d 456,

464 (5 th Cir. 1977). Courts should take special care in reviewing

recusal claims so as to prevent parties from “abus[ing] § 455 for

a dilatory and litigiou s purpose based on little or no

substantiated basis.” T ravelers Ins. Co. v. Liljeberg Enterprises,

Inc.

, 38 F.3d 1404, 1409 n.8 (5 th Cir . 1994). Chief Justice

Rehnquist has noted, when considering a request for his own

recusal, that “a federal judge has a duty to sit where not

disqualified which is equally as strong a s the duty to not sit

where disqualified.” Laird v. Tatum , 409 U.S. 824, 837 (1972).

A

As noted, the Plaintiffs identify three statutory bases for

their recusal motion: 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), § 455(b)(4), and §

455(b)(5)(iii). Under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), “Any . . . judge . . .

of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in

which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned .” Courts

have interpreted this statute to require recusa l if a reasonable15

person, knowing all of the facts, would harbor doubts concerning

the judge’s impartiality. L iljeberg v. H ealth Serv. Acquisition

Corp.

, 486 U.S. 847, 860-61 (1988). In conducting this review, we

must ask how these facts woul d appear to a “well-informed,

thoughtful and objective observer, rather than the hypersensitive,

cynical, and suspicious person.” U .S. v. Jordan

, 49 F.3d 152, 156

(5 th Cir. 1995). Moreover, courts should be cautious and

d iscriminating in reviewing recusal motions. As the Seventh

Circuit has noted:

A thoughtful observer understands that putting

disqualification in the hands of a party,

whose real fear may be th at the judge will

apply rather than disregard the law, could

introduce a bias into adjudication. Thus the

search is for a risk substantially out of the

ordinary.

In r e Mason , 916 F.2d 384, 385-86 (7 t h Cir. 1990), cited with

approval in Jordan , 49 F.3d at 156.

In examining this question, we first note that there is no

evidence of any direct connection between Judge James and this

case. He has no direct financial interest in the outcome nor does

he have any relationships with any of the parties that would call

his imp artiality into question. Mrs. James similarly lacks any

direct connection or direct financial interest in this case. There

is no social relationship between her and any parties to this

matter, including District Attorney Levy. Nor does Mrs. James, in

her position as assistant district attorney, have any professional7 Her duties within that office are limited solely to criminal

prosecution of domestic violence and sex crime cases; she currently

does not play and has never played any role in representing the

Union Parish Police Jury or advising District Attorney Levy or any

other attorneys in his office on matters related to the Police

Jury. This role is assigned to, and exercised exclusively by,

Assistant Civil District Attorney S. Andrew Shealy, who was

appointed by Levy to serve as lead counsel in this case. Moreover,

in Mrs. James’ position as prosecutor of domestic violence and sex

crimes

-- almost all of which take place in another Parish (Lincoln

Parish)

-- her only client has been the State of Louisiana; she has

never represented Union Parish in any matter.

8 The P laintiffs also allege that political animosities exist

between Sensley and District Attorney Levy and that knowledge of

these animosities would, for a reasonable observer, raise questions

about Judge James’s impartiali ty. Whatever the nature of these

alleged political differences, however, they are far too attenuated

to implicate Judge James’s impartiality. To the extent that they

exist, they exist between Sensley and District Attorney Levy

-- not

between Sensley and Judge James or even Sensley and Mrs. James.

Accordingly, we see no reason why they raise any questions

regarding Judge James’s impartiality in this case.

16 connection to the case. 7 Finally, it is undisputed that she has no

financial or other interests directly at stake in this case.

Notwithstanding Judge James’s lack of any direct interest in

t his case, either personally or through his wife, the Plainti ffs

nevertheless contend that Judge James (through Mrs. James) stands

indirectly to benefit from the outcome of this case. Specifically,

they point to Mrs. James’s position as an at-will employee in the

office of District Attorney Levy, arguing that this status creates

an incentive for her to ensure that District Attorney Levy -- her

employer

-- is successful in this case. 8 They assert that a threat

to Mrs. James’s job security would lead a thoughtful observer to

question Judge James’s impartiality in deciding this case.17

T hus reduced to its essence, the Plaintiffs are contending

that when an immediate family member is an at-will employee in the

o ffice representing a party, the impartiality of the judge is

called into question. This court, however, has rejected a similar

argument in Weinberger

, where we recognized that a relative’s mere

at-will e mployment relationship with an agency or law firm

representing a party before a district court judge in a particular

case is insufficient to require a judge to recu se himself.

Weinberger

, 557 F.2d at 463-64. There , we held that a district

judge was not required to recuse himself where the judge’s son was

an associate in a law firm representing a party to the litigation

but had no involvement in the litigation at issue. I d

. W e

concluded that the son’s interest as an associate in the law firm

was too remote to require disqual ification under the “reasonable

man” standard of 28 U.S.C. § 455(a). Id . Here, as the district

court noted, there is even a lesser need for recusal given the fact

that, unlike the law firm conte xt, the family member here has no

direct financial interest in the outcome of the case. Accordingly,

it appears Judge James did not abuse his discretion in refusing to

recuse himself under § 455(a).

B

For similar reasons, it does not appear Judge James abused his

discretion in refusing to recuse himself under § 455(b)(4) or §

455(b)(5)(iii). Both of these statutes require recusal when a

judge or his spouse has a financial or other interest in the case18

t hat could be substantially a ffected by the outcome of the

proceeding

. Financial interest is defined as “ownership of a legal

or equitable interest, however small, o r a relationship as

director, adviser, or other active participant in the affairs of a

party....” 28 U.S.C. § 455(d)(4). However, “where an interest is

not direct, but is remote, contingent or speculative, it is not the

kind of interest which reasonably brings into question a ju dge’s

partiality.” I n re Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc.

, 861 F.2d 1307,

1313 (2d Cir. 1988), cert. denied , 490 U.S. 1102 (1989).

Here, the Plaintiffs make arguments similar to their at-will

arguments above. They do not contend that the outcome of this case

will directly affect any interest

-- financial or other

-- of Judge

James or his spouse. Instead, they argue that the outcome of the

case could possibly have an indirect impact on Mrs. James’s ongoing

status as an employee at the district attorney’s office. However,

they are only able to make this argument by layering several

speculative premises on top of one another to reach a speculative

conclusion: if District Attorney Levy loses this case, it m ight

adver sely affect his political popularity; and if it adversely

affects his political popularity, he migh t lose his next election;

and if he loses his next election, Mrs. James might lose her job if

the new district attorney chose not to retain her. This edifice of

conjecture will not support an objective conclusion that Judge

James has a financial interest in the outcome of this case.9 We note that it would have been helpful if the judge had made

a statement to the parties concerning his wife’s employment (even

if he might have reasonably thought that most of the people in this

small parish knew of his wife’s job) and her noninvolvement in

Police Jury matters.

19 Similar conclusions regarding recusal under § 455 have been

reached by other courts presented with similar facts. See

, e.g.

,

Weinberger

, 557 F.2d at 456; In re Kans as Public Employees

Retirement System

, 85 F.3d 1353, 1364-65 (8 th C ir. 1996) (finding

no abuse of discretion in denial of recusal where, inter alia

,

during pendency of litigation judge’s daughter accepted defendant’s

offer of employ ment as associate attorney); s ee also Hunt v.

American Bank & Trust of Baton Rouge

, 783 F.2d 1011 (11 th Cir. 1986)

(holding that a judge’s law clerk’s ac ceptance of an employment

offer made by a firm representing a party before that judge did not

require recusal as that clerk was not participating in the case in

question)

. C f

. Jordan

, 49 F.3d at 156-58 (holding that judge

abused her discretion in failing to recuse herself in criminal case

because of judge’s friendship wit h attorney whom defendant had

accused of criminal actions). S ee generally Judicial Conference of

the United States, Committee on Codes of Conduct, Adv. Op. 60

(April 16, 1979, revised May 27, 1994), a t

http://www.uscourts.gov/guide/vol2/60.html. For these reasons, we

find no abuse of discretion here in the district judge's conclusion

that his impartiality could not reasonably be questioned. 9

CONCLUSION20

In sum, we conclude that the district court did not commit

clear error in finding that the Plaintiffs had failed to satisfy

Gingles ’ “geographi cally compact” precondition. In addition, we

hold that the district judge did not abuse his discretion in

refusing to recuse himself. Accordingly, the district court’s

judgment is in all respects

AFFIRMED.