Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/409/1095/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:43:41+00:00

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Mr. Justice WHITE, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice MARSHALL join, dissenting.
The Louisiana constitutional provisions, which this Court today upholds against appellant's renewed constitutional attack, provide for the election of the State's Supreme Court Justices from election districts that are established without regard to population. Voters in five districts, composed of varying numbers of parishes, elect one justice each. A sixth district elects two justices. La. Const., Art. VII, 9. The record before the District Court indicated that there was 'considerable deviation between the population of some of the [election] districts,' 347 F.Supp., at 454,1 and that, therefore, the votes of some qualified voters, depending on the happenstance of residence, were of less value in electing justices than others, cast elsewhere. But the District Court refused even to consider this evidence and, relying on a few isolated sentences in Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U.S. 50 (1970), concluded that 'the concept of one-man, one-vote apportionment does not apply to the judicial branch of the government.' 347 F.Supp., at 454. Summary judgment was entered against appellant, who had attacked the Louisiana scheme under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
'[W]hile the office of junior college trustee differs in certain respects from those offices considered in prior cases, it is exactly the same in the one crucial factor-these officials are elected by popular vote.
The judgment of the District Court is questionable under a decade of this Court's decisions. It as least warrants plenary review here.
Footnote 1 The record indicates that in 1970 the election districts ranged in population from 369,485 to 682,072. The two-justice district had a total population of 1,007,449.
Footnote 2 There is language in other district court opinions to the effect that one-person, one-vote principle does not apply to the judiciary. See, e. g., Holshouser v. Scott, 335 F.Supp. 928 (MDNC 1971), aff'd, 409 U.S. 807, 34, L.Ed.2d 68 (1972); Buchanan v. Rhodes, 249 F.Supp. 860 (ND Ohio), appeal dismissed for want of jurisdiction, 385 U.S. 3, 87 S. Ct. 33 (1966); Stokes v. Fortson, 234 F.Supp. 575 (ND Ga. 1964). See also New York State Assn. of Trial Lawyers v. Rockefeller, 267 F.Supp. 148 (SDNY 1967). The statutory schemes involved in those cases, however, differ materially from the Louisiana provisions at issue here. For example, in Holshouser and Stokes, district Judges were nominated through primaries in districts with varying populations; the judges were elected, however, on a statewide basis that conformed to the one-person, one-vote principle. In this context, the district courts rejected the claim that plaintiffs' primary votes were 'diluted' by the general election. Cf. Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U.S. 105 (1967); Dusch v. Davis, 387 U.S. 112, 18 L. Ed.2d 656 (1967). In Buchanan, plaintiffs claimed that the apportionment of trial judges in the State resulted in fewer judges per capita in urban districts than in rural districts. Plaintiffs challenged the apportionment on the ground that it denied them speedy justice, not on the ground that their vote in statewide elections was diluted.
See generally Note, The Equal-Population Principle: Does It Apply To Elected Judges?, 47 Notre Dame L. 316 (1971).
Footnote 3 For example, in Hadley, Mr. Justice Black conceded the possibility 'that there might be some case in which a State elects certain functionaries whose duties are so far removed from normal governmental activities and so disproportionately affect different groups that a popular election in compliance with Reynolds . . . might not be required.' 397 U.S., at 56. See Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 483-484 (1968).

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