Source: https://openjurist.org/338/f3d/1009
Timestamp: 2017-11-19 12:33:41
Document Index: 714458074

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1973', '§ 1973', '§ 1973', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 29', '§ 9']

338 F3d 1009 Farrakhan v. Washington | OpenJurist
338 F. 3d 1009 - Farrakhan v. Washington
338 F.3d 1009
Muhammad Shabazz FARRAKHAN, individually aka Ernest S. Walker; Marcus X. Price, individually; Ramon Barrientes, individually; Timothy Schaaf, individually; Clifton Briceno, individually; Al-Kareem Shadeed, individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants,
State of WASHINGTON; Gary Locke, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Washington; Sam Reed, in his official capacity of Secretary of State and Chief Election Officer for the State of Washington; Joseph Lehman, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Department of Corrections of the State of Washington, Defendants-Appellees.
42 U.S.C. § 1973. Thus, a plaintiff may establish a Section 2 violation by showing that, based on of the totality of the circumstances, the challenged voting practice results in discrimination on account of race.11
(5) the extent to which members of the minority group in the state or political subdivision bear the effects of discrimination in such areas as education, employment and health, which hinder their ability to participate effectively in the political process;
(9) whether the policy underlying the state or political subdivision's use of such voting qualification, prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice or procedure is tenuous.
See S.Rep. No. 97-417, at 28-29 (1982), reprinted in 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. 177, 206-07 ("Senate Report"). Congress did not intend this list to be comprehensive or exclusive, nor did it intend that "any particular number of factors be proved, or that a majority of them point one way or the other." Id. at 29. Rather, as explained by the Supreme Court, in examining the totality of the circumstances to determine whether a challenged voting practice results in vote denial or vote dilution on account of race, courts must consider how the challenged practice "interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters to elect their preferred representatives." Gingles, 478 U.S. at 47, 106 S.Ct. 2752.
As a preliminary matter, we agree with the district court that Plaintiffs' claim of vote denial is cognizable under Section 2 of the VRA. Felon disenfranchisement is a voting qualification, and Section 2 is clear that any voting qualification that denies citizens the right to vote in a discriminatory manner violates the VRA. 42 U.S.C. § 1973. Indeed, the Supreme Court has made clear that states cannot use felon disenfranchisement as a tool to discriminate on the basis of race, see Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 233, 105 S.Ct. 1916, 85 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) (holding that where racial bias motivated its original enactment, a facially neutral felon disenfranchisement law violated the Equal Protection Clause), and Congress specifically amended the VRA to ensure that, "in the context of all the circumstances in the jurisdiction in question," any disparate racial impact of facially neutral voting requirements did not result from racial discrimination, Senate Report at 27; see also Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U.S. at 394 & n. 21, 111 S.Ct. 2354.
Relying extensively on our decision in Salt River, 109 F.3d at 594-96, the district court concluded that Plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that Washington's felon disenfranchisement provision was either "motivated by racial animus, or that its operation by itself has a discriminatory effect."13 Although it determined that the disenfranchisement statute resulted in the under-representation of minorities in Washington's political process, the district court found that Plaintiffs had failed to satisfy their causal burden because the cause of the underrepresentation "is not the voting qualification; instead, the cause is bias external to the voting qualification," i.e., discrimination in the criminal justice system.14 In so ruling, the district court applied a causal standard at odds with the Salt River decision (which "compelled" its understanding of the Section 2 analysis), the plain language of the VRA, its legislative history, and other well-established judicial precedent.
Section 2 plainly provides that a voting practice or procedure violates the VRA when a plaintiff is able to show, based on the totality of the circumstances, that the challenged voting practice results in discrimination on account of race. 42 U.S.C. § 1973. The Supreme Court has interpreted "[t]he essence of a [Section] 2 claim" to be "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." Gingles, 478 U.S. at 47, 106 S.Ct. 2752 (emphasis added). Thus, it is clear that whether a particular practice results in vote denial or vote dilution in violation of Section 2 always depends on the "totality of the circumstances" in which the practice operates.
In assessing their claim, we considered both the interaction of the challenged landownership requirement with the surrounding social and historical circumstances in the district and expert testimony "regarding the relationship, or lack thereof, between race and home ownership" in the district. Id. at 590. Deferring to the district court's factual findings, we focused on its conclusion that "the observed difference in rates of home ownership between non-Hispanic whites and African-Americans is not substantially explained by race but is better explained by other factors independent of race" which "adequately rebutted any inference of racial bias that the [disparate impact] statistics might suggest." Id. at 591 (emphasis added) (internal citations omitted). Because the land ownership rates did not reflect racial discrimination, we concluded that the land ownership requirement did not violate Section 2. Id. at 594-96.
In so concluding, the Salt River court did not focus solely on the land ownership requirement and exclude external factors that helped determine the qualification's disparate racial impact. Instead, we considered the external factors, but ultimately concluded that the statistics evidencing the disproportionate percentage of white landownership did not reflect racial discrimination and so failed to satisfy the "on account of race" requirement of the results test. As we noted, this conclusion was dictated by the Salt River plaintiffs' admission that there was no evidence of discrimination as measured by the Senate Report factors, id. at 595-96, and their stipulation to "the nonexistence of virtually every circumstance which might indicate that landowner-only voting results in racial discrimination," id. at 595, leaving only a bare statistical showing of disparate impact to support their Section 2 claim.
In light of these constraints, the Salt River court's statement regarding the need for evidence of "a causal connection between the challenged voting practice and [a] prohibited discriminatory result," id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original), simply does not stand for the proposition that the practice must, "by itself," cause the discriminatory result. Indeed, if it did, there would have been no need for the court to consider whether land ownership rates reflected racial discrimination or to assess other totality of the circumstances factors.
Further, demanding "by itself" causation would defeat the interactive and contextual totality of the circumstances analysis repeatedly applied by our sister circuits in Section 2 cases, as they also require a broad, functionally-focused review of the evidence to determine whether a challenged voting practice interacts with surrounding racial discrimination in a meaningful way or whether the practice's disparate impact "is better explained by other factors independent of race." Salt River, 109 F.3d at 591 (internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., Ortiz v. City of Philadelphia Office of the City Comm'rs, 28 F.3d 306, 310-16 (3d Cir.1994) (acknowledging that Section 2 violations occur when challenged voting practices interact with social and historical conditions to deny minorities equal access to the political process, but ultimately upholding Pennsylvania's voter purge law because there was no evidence that discrimination or societal disadvantages had contributed to low minority voter turnout); Salas v. S.W. Tex. Junior Coll. Dist., 964 F.2d 1542, 1555-56 (5th Cir.1992) (noting that "practical impediments to voting" are relevant in assessing a Section 2 challenge but finding no credible evidence that the effects of prior discrimination — including unemployment, illiteracy, and low income — had contributed to the low voter turnout that caused Hispanics' lack of electoral success, the court held that the real cause of this lack of success was not the challenged voting practice); Irby v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 889 F.2d 1352, 1358-59 (4th Cir.1989) (upholding an appointive rather than an elective scheme for selecting county school boards because (1) in the few counties in which blacks were significantly underrepresented the disparity was due to the fact that fewer blacks sought appointment, and (2) the composition of the officials responsible for making appointments either manifested no discrimination or should have been addressed through a challenge to the selection procedures for those officials); United States v. Marengo County Comm'n, 731 F.2d 1546, 1574 (11th Cir. 1984) (finding that the evidence demonstrated that blacks' lack of success at the polls was not due to "apathy" but rather due to social and historical factors including "a history of pervasive racial discrimination," and holding that an at-large election system therefore resulted in a Section 2 violation).
Moreover, the district court's "by itself" causation standard would effectively read an intent requirement back into the VRA, in direct contradiction of the clear command of the 1982 Amendments to Section 2. A facially neutral voting qualification, even one that results in substantial discriminatory effects, would only be discriminatory "by itself" if its purpose was to achieve those discriminatory effects. Instead, courts must be able to consider whether voting practices "accommodate or amplify the effect that ... discrimination has on the voting process," Salt River, 109 F.3d at 595 n. 7 (internal quotation marks omitted); absent proof that the challenged practice was adopted or maintained out of overt, intentional racial animus, its disproportionate effect on minority voters could only ever be "on account of race" through its interaction with racial discrimination "outside of the challenged voting mechanism."
In sum, although Salt River made clear that "a bare statistical showing of disproportionate impact on a racial minority does not satisfy the [Section] 2 `results' inquiry" because causation cannot be inferred from impact alone, 109 F.3d at 595, the legislative history of the VRA along with the consistent judicial interpretation of Section 2 clarify that "[e]ven a consistently applied practice premised on a racially neutral policy would not negate a plaintiff's showing through other factors that the challenged practice denies minorities fair access to the process." Senate Report at 29 n.117. Certainly, plaintiffs must prove that the challenged voter qualification denies or abridges their right to vote on account of race, but the 1982 Amendments and subsequent case law make clear that factors outside the election system can contribute to a particular voting practice's disparate impact when those factors involve race discrimination. Therefore, under Salt River and consistent with both Congressional intent and well-established judicial precedent, a causal connection may be shown where the discriminatory impact of a challenged voting practice is attributable to racial discrimination in the surrounding social and historical circumstances. In light of this determination, we turn to the question of whether evidence of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system qualifies as such evidence.
As noted above, the Senate Report accompanying the 1982 Amendments identified "typical factors" that may be relevant in analyzing whether a particular voting practice violates Section 2, but Congress did not intend the listed factors to be exhaustive. The legislative history accompanying the 1982 Amendments acknowledged that "while these enumerated factors will often be the most relevant ones, in some cases other factors will be indicative" of a Section 2 violation. Senate Report at 29. Further, the Supreme Court has emphasized the importance of maintaining a practical perspective when evaluating the effects or lawfulness of a challenged voting practice, Gingles, 478 U.S. at 46, 106 S.Ct. 2752, and courts have followed this directive in considering the lower socio-economic status of American Indians, see Old Person v. Brown, 312 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir.2002), the disproportionate number of blacks living in poverty and inadequate housing, see Johnson v. Halifax County, 594 F.Supp. 161, 169-70 (E.D.N.C.1984), a Board of Education's opposition to school desegregation, see Marengo, 731 F.2d at 1568, and the past and continuing unemployment, illiteracy, and low income that Hispanic citizens face, see Salas, 964 F.2d at 1556.
Thus, simply because Congress did not specifically identify racial bias in the criminal justice system as a relevant factor in identifying a Section 2 violation does not mean that it should be excluded from a totality of the circumstances analysis. In fact, this kind of evidence is encompassed within the scope of factor (5), directing courts to consider "the extent to which members of the minority group in the state or political subdivision bear the effects of discrimination in such areas as education, employment, and health." Senate Report at 29.
This factor underscores Congress's intent to provide courts with a means of identifying voting practices that have the effect of shifting racial inequality from the surrounding social circumstances into the political process. To the extent that racial bias and discrimination in the criminal justice system contribute to the conviction of minorities for "infamous crimes," such discrimination would clearly hinder the ability of racial minorities to participate effectively in the political process, as disenfranchisement is automatic. Thus, racial bias in the criminal justice system may very well interact with voter disqualifications to create the kinds of barriers to political participation on account of race that are prohibited by Section 2, rendering it simply another relevant social and historical condition to be considered where appropriate.
Indeed, had the district court properly interpreted the causation requirement under the totality of the circumstances test instead of applying its novel "by itself" causation standard, the court might have reached a different conclusion.15 Although we conduct a de novo review of the record, in light of the district court's assessment that Plaintiffs' evidence was compelling and its determination that such evidence was insignificant for its analysis of the totality of the circumstances surrounding Plaintiffs' Section 2 claim, we believe that it is appropriate to remand this claim to the district court for further proceedings. On remand, the district court should make any requisite factual findings following an appropriate evidentiary hearing, if necessary, and assess the totality of the circumstances, including Plaintiffs' evidence of racial bias in Washington's criminal justice system.
Plaintiffs also argue that Washington's statute for the restoration of civil rights, RCW § 9.94A.220, and the process that the State has adopted to implement the statute, violate Section 2.16 The statute provides:
RCW § 9.94A.220. Plaintiffs contend that Washington's scheme for restoration of civil rights is "cumbersome, excessively complex, and places difficult burdens on offenders seeking restoration of voting rights."17 Plaintiffs further argue that the statutory eligibility requirements violate the VRA by causing a disproportionately minority population to be prohibited from registering and voting.
Plaintiffs argue that because Section 9.94A.220 prohibited them from registering and voting, they have suffered an injury in fact. However, proof of this element requires "an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical." Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Plaintiffs' argument glosses over the fact that they have not been denied the right to vote because of the restoration process, but rather due to the disenfranchisement provision discussed at length above, and because they have not satisfied all the requirements of their sentences to become statutorily eligible for discharge of their convictions. The right to a discharge of conviction arises only upon the completion of all the requirements of the judgment and sentence.
To the extent that the basis for Plaintiffs' asserted injury in fact is the statutory process "as applied," their allegations of harm are conjectural or hypothetical — Plaintiffs speculate that the process would be "cumbersome, excessively complex, and place[] a difficult burden on them" should they ever qualify for restoration of their civil rights under Section 9.94A.220.20 Accordingly, we agree with the district court that Plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the process for obtaining restoration of their civil rights under RCW § 9.94A.220 as a violation of Section 2.21
Under Washington law, an "infamous crime" is a crime punishable by death in the state penitentiary or imprisonment in a state correctional facility. RCW § 29.01.080
Plaintiffs Farrakhan, Price, Shadeed, and Schaaf are African-American. Plaintiff Briceno is Native American. Plaintiff Barrientes is Hispanic-American. Section 2 protects "any citizen who is a member of a protected class of racial minorities."Gingles, 478 U.S. at 43, 106 S.Ct. 2752.
Plaintiffs challenged both Washington's disenfranchisement law, set out in Article VI, Section 3 of the Washington State Constitution, and its process for restoring voting rights to those felons who have completed all requirements of their sentence, as provided under former RCW Section 9.94A.220. In 2002, Section 9.94A.220 was amended and recodified as Section 9.94A.637. Unless otherwise noted, all further references are to the version of the statute challenged by Plaintiffs — RCW § 9.94A.220
The defendants are the State of Washington, Washington Governor Gary Locke, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, and Secretary of the Washington State Department of Corrections Joseph Lehman (collectively the "State")
One such statistic showed that although African-Americans constituted 3% of Washington's overall population, they accounted for 37% of the "persistent offender" sentences handed down by Washington courts
These reports included the WSMJC 1999 study entitledThe Impact of Race and Ethnicity on Charging and Sentencing Processes for Drug Offenders in Three Counties of Washington State and the Final Report of Dr. George Bridges, Ph.D., also commissioned by the WSMJC, entitled A Study on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Superior Court Bail and Pretrial Detention Practices in Washington.
Although the Local Rules for the Eastern District of Washington require the party opposing a motion of summary judgment to submit a separate document setting forth any disputes it has with the moving party's statement of uncontroverted facts, the Local Rules leave to the court's discretion whether to assume that certain facts have been admitted without controversySee E.D. Wash. R. 56.1(d) ("In determining any motion for summary judgment, the Court may assume that the facts as claimed by the moving party are admitted to exist without controversy except as and to the extent that such facts are controverted by the record set forth in [the opposing party's responsive memorandum]." (emphasis added)). Here, the district court did not indicate whether it assumed that some or all of the state's undisputed facts were "admitted to exist without controversy." The district court's characterization of Plaintiffs' evidence as "compelling" suggests that, at least with respect to some of the State's material facts, it did not assume that they were "admitted to exist without controversy."
Because the district court did not explicitly point to any particular aspect of Plaintiffs' evidence of discrimination in Washington's criminal justice system, its assessment of the strength of Plaintiffs' evidence must refer to both its statistical evidence and the expert studies that analyzed the racial bias evidenced by those statistics
The court further concluded that Plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the process for restoration of civil rights under Section 9.94A.220, because no Plaintiff had yet qualified for such relief or had even attempted to regain his civil rights
Congress amended the VRA with the express purpose of clarifying that discriminatory intent was not required to establish a Section 2 violation after a plurality of the Supreme Court held that the pre-1982 VRA, like the Fifteenth Amendment, required proof of discriminatory intentSee City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980).
We have held that the totality of the circumstances approach applies to both vote dilution and vote denial claimsSalt River, 109 F.3d at 596 n. 8.
In so holding, we note that the Sixth Circuit proceeded to engage in a Section 2 analysis to evaluate a challenge to Tennessee's felon disenfranchisement statute,see Wesley v. Collins, 791 F.2d 1255 (6th Cir.1986) (ultimately holding that the Tennessee statute did not violate the VRA), and that the Second Circuit, sitting en banc, split five-to-five on the question of whether disenfranchised felons could state a claim under the VRA. Baker v. Pataki, 85 F.3d 919 (2d Cir.1996).
The district court also relied on the Eleventh Circuit's decision inBurton v. City of Belle Glade, 178 F.3d 1175, 1198 (11th Cir. 1999), in "weighing the significance of Plaintiffs' evidence." In Burton, tenants of a predominantly black housing project claimed that the housing authority's refusal to petition and the City's failure to annex the project violated Section 2. Id. at 1186. In the view of the district court, the Burton decision "acknowledged that historical patterns of housing discrimination had segregated the African-American community ..., but held that this evidence was insufficient to establish a VRA violation because `[a]lthough Appellants have presented evidence of housing segregation in Belle Glade and in the two centers, we can find no evidence of any discrimination with respect to voting. Id. at 1198.'"
Significantly, the district court concluded that "evidence of discrimination in the criminal justice system is only useful for establishing a generalized climate of discrimination which hinders minority opportunity to participate in the political process," but found that "such evidence, by itself" was not sufficient to establish a causal link between Washington's disenfranchisement provision and minority underrepresentation in Washington's political process
Plaintiffs also presented evidence regarding the tenuous policy justifications for Washington's felon disenfranchisement law. In its order denying the State's motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' vote denial claim, the district court noted our criticism of the underlying policy justifications for Washington's law inDillenburg v. Kramer, 469 F.2d 1222 (9th Cir.1972). Although recognizing that "Dillenburg is not good law to the extent that it suggests that the disenfranchisement of felons, on its face, cannot pass constitutional muster," the district court opined that "Dillenburg remains applicable... to the extent that the decision discusses the alleged justifications for felon disenfranchisement statutes." 987 F.Supp. at 1312. The district court also noted that Dillenburg was especially critical of "Washington's law in particular, since it denies felons the right to vote based on the possible penalty for their offense, rather than their actual penalty or conduct." Id.
As noted, Section 9.94A.220 was amended and recodified as Section 9.94.637. We further note that, along with several revisions to the existing subsections, Section 9.94A.637 contains a new subsection that provides
Plaintiffs state that felony offenders are typically unaware that their voting rights have been revoked upon conviction, and that upon release from incarceration, they are generally uninformed as to their voting status. Additionally, according to Plaintiffs, Washington's Secretary of State has no policy of either providing information to released felons about their status or ensuring that election officials are trained to answer questions regarding the voter eligibility of those convicted of an infamous crime under Washington law. The revised and recodified statute attempts to address some of the alleged deficiencies, as the legislative history accompanying the 2002 Amendments states:
Although the district court rejected Plaintiff Farrakhan's standing argument, we hold that he has standing to challenge the statutory eligibility requirements because Farrakhan has completed all terms of his judgment and sentence aside from his monetary restitution obligation
Plaintiffs also argue that the statutory requirement that they repay their monetary obligations in order to be eligible for restoration amounts to ade facto poll tax. Although this argument might be cognizable as an equal protection claim, see Bynum v. Conn. Comm'n of Forfeited Rights, 410 F.2d 173, 176-77 (2d Cir.1969), we do not consider it here because Plaintiffs have not asserted any equal protection claims.
Because we hold that Plaintiffs have not established an injury in fact, it is not necessary to address whether they satisfy the other standing requirements
As noted, the district court denied Plaintiff Farrakhan's request for leave to file a due process challenge to Washington's statutory scheme governing the restoration of felons' civil rightsFarrakhan, 987 F.Supp. at 1315. The district court concluded that Farrakhan lacked standing to pursue this claim. Because the above standing analysis is equally applicable to a putative due process claim, we find no error in the district court's ruling. Indeed, because they are not statutorily eligible for restoration, Plaintiffs no more have standing to challenge the restoration procedures on due process grounds than on Section 2 grounds.