Opinion ID: 1380470
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second Iqbal ProngPlausibility of Intentional Discrimination Claim

Text: The central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race. Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 239, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976). To violate the Fourteenth Amendment a statute need not be facially discriminatory, for even [a] statute, otherwise neutral on its face, violates the Fourteenth Amendment if it is applied so as invidiously to discriminate on the basis of race. Id. at 241, 96 S.Ct. 2040. However, [p]roof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 265, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977). Although [d]isproportionate impact is not irrelevant, Washington, 426 U.S. at 242, 96 S.Ct. 2040, to violate the Fourteenth Amendment the disproportionate impact must be traced to a purpose to discriminate on the basis of race, Pers. Adm'r of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 260, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979) (emphasis added) (citing Washington, 426 U.S. at 238-44, 96 S.Ct. 2040). [11] `Discriminatory purpose' ... implies more than intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences. It implies that the decisionmaker[s], in this case [constitutional delegates and] a state legislature, selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part `because of,' not merely `in spite of,' its adverse effects upon an identifiable group. Feeney, 442 U.S. at 279, 99 S.Ct. 2282 (citation and footnote omitted). However, while a plaintiff must prove that there was a discriminatory purpose behind the course of action, a plaintiff need not prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes. Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 265, 97 S.Ct. 555; see also Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 232, 105 S.Ct. 1916, 85 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) (stating that an additional purpose... would not render nugatory the purpose to discriminate against all Blacks); Feeney, 442 U.S. at 277, 99 S.Ct. 2282 (Discriminatory intent is simply not amenable to calibration. It either is a factor that has influenced the legislative choice or it is not.). Because discriminatory intent is rarely susceptible to direct proof, litigants may make a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available. The impact of the official actionwhether it bears more heavily on one race than anothermay provide an important starting point. Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 266, 97 S.Ct. 555 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). But unless a clear pattern, unexplainable on grounds other than race, emerges, id., impact alone is not determinative, and the Court must look to other evidence, id. (footnote omitted). In Arlington Heights, the Supreme Court identified a non-exhaustive list of some subjects of proper inquiry for determining whether a racially discriminatory intent existed, including [t]he historical background of the decision ... particularly if it reveals a series of official actions taken for invidious purposes, id. at 267, 97 S.Ct. 555, [d]epartures from the normal procedural sequence, id., [s]ubstantive departures, id., and [t]he legislative or administrative history ... especially where there are contemporary statements by members of the decisionmaking body, minutes of its meetings, or reports, id. at 268, 97 S.Ct. 555. The Court has noted, however, that [p]roving the motivation behind official action is often a problematic undertaking. Hunter, 471 U.S. at 228, 105 S.Ct. 1916. Here, plaintiffs undoubtedly have alleged sufficient facts to establish the disproportionate impact of New York's felon disenfranchisement laws on Blacks and Latinos, as compared with Whites. See supra Background, Part III.B. The question remains, however, as to whether plaintiffs have sufficiently traced that impact to a purpose to discriminate on the basis of race, Feeney, 442 U.S. at 260, 99 S.Ct. 2282 (emphasis added), thereby stating a plausible claim of intentional race discrimination. The Supreme Court has specifically addressed the constitutionality of felon disenfranchisement laws on two occasions. First, in Richardson v. Ramirez , the Court held that a state may constitutionally exclude convicted felons from the franchise because § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides an affirmative sanction for such exclusion, 418 U.S. 24, 53-54, 94 S.Ct. 2655, 41 L.Ed.2d 551 (1974), [12] even though § 1 provides that [n]o State shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. Then, in Hunter, the Supreme Court held that even though Ramirez said that felon disenfranchisement laws were generally constitutional under § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Alabama's felon disenfranchisement provision nonetheless violated the Equal Protection Clause because it was enacted with discriminatory intent. Hunter, 471 U.S. at 233, 105 S.Ct. 1916. The Court stated that it was confident that § 2 was not designed to permit the purposeful racial discrimination attending the enactment and operation of [a state constitutional provision] which otherwise violates § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id.; see also Hayden I, 449 F.3d at 316 n. 11 (The Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, does not completely insulate felon disenfranchisement provisions from constitutional scrutiny. It is clear, for example, that if a State disenfranchises felons `with the intent of disenfranchising Blacks,' that State has run afoul of [§] 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment.). Thus, while felon disenfranchisement laws are generally constitutional under § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, such laws will be held unconstitutional under § 1 if the laws are enacted with discriminatory intent. As an initial matter, we find that plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to support a plausible claim that the 1821, 1846, and 1874 felon disenfranchisement constitutional provisions were passed at least in part because of their adverse effects on Blacks. First, plaintiffs allege that during the New York Constitutional Convention in 1821, there were heated discussions during which delegates expressed the view that Blacks were natural[ly] inferior[] and unfit[] for suffrage. J.A. 107, ¶ 46; see also Debates of 1821, supra, at 191, 199 (reflecting delegates' view that prisons were largely populated by Blacks). Plaintiffs further allege that specific property and citizenship requirements tied to voting, which expressly applied only to Blacks, were incorporated in the Constitution of 1821. Second, plaintiffs assert that at the Constitutional Convention in 1846, heated debates continued regarding Blacks' unfitness for suffrage, including a declaration that the proportion of [felonies committed] in the minority population was more than thirteen times that in the White population. Finally, plaintiffs state that New York's explicit discriminatory suffrage requirements were in place until voided by the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, but that two years after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, an unprecedented committee convened and amended the disenfranchisement provision of the New York Constitution to require the state legislature, at its following session, to enact laws excluding persons convicted of infamous crimes from the right to vote. [13] Drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiffs based on these well-pleaded factual allegations, we find that plaintiffs satisfy the Iqbal plausibility standard as to the alleged discriminatory intent behind the pre-1894 constitutional provisions. The issue we are confronted with here, though, is whether the enactment of the 1894 constitutional provision, albeit preceded by earlier provisions that plausibly admit of racist origins, can support an equal protection claim. More specifically, the issue here is whether plaintiffs adequately allege intentional discrimination where they have pleaded sufficient factual matter to plausibly show that the 1821, 1846, and 1874 enactments were motivated by a discriminatory purpose, but where they have not made any adequately supported factual allegations of impermissible motive affecting the delegates to the 1894 convention. See McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 298 n. 20, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987) (recognizing that historical background of a decision is one source of evidence for proof of intentional discrimination under Arlington Heights, but that unless historical evidence is reasonably contemporaneous with the challenged decision, it has little probative value); see also City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 74, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980) (plurality opinion by Stewart, J.) ([P]ast discrimination cannot, in the manner of original sin, condemn governmental action that is not itself unlawful. The ultimate question remains whether a discriminatory intent has been proved in a given case. More distant instances of official discrimination in other cases are of limited help in resolving that question.), superseded by statute on other grounds as explained in Hayden I, 449 F.3d at 313, 320-21; cf. Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 268, 97 S.Ct. 555 (stating that legislative history may be highly relevant, especially where there are contemporary statements by members of the decisionmaking body (emphasis added)). We hold that, under these circumstances, plaintiffs fail to state a plausible claim of intentional discrimination as to the enactment of the 1894 constitutional provision, which continues in effect today. The Supreme Court's decision in Hunter does not alter our conclusion. In Hunter, the Court held that Alabama's 1901 constitutional disenfranchisement provision violated the Equal Protection Clause because its original enactment was motivated by a desire to discriminate against Blacks on account of race and the section continues to this day to have that effect. 471 U.S. at 233, 105 S.Ct. 1916. The Hunter Court did not decide, however, whether [the 1901 provision] would be valid if enacted today without any impermissible motivation. Id.; see also City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 465 n. 17, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985) (Marshall, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part) (Recently we held that extant laws originally motivated by a discriminatory purpose continue to violate the Equal Protection Clause, even if they would be permissible were they reenacted without a discriminatory motive. (citing Hunter, 471 U.S. at 222-23, 105 S.Ct. 1916, 85 L.Ed.2d 222)). The Court did reject the argument that intervening events, such as the judicial invalidation of [s]ome of the more blatantly discriminatory selections, such as assault and battery on the wife and miscegenation, had cured the violation. Hunter, 471 U.S. at 233, 105 S.Ct. 1916. It was clear in Hunter, however, that [a]fter the 1901 enactment, the Alabama legislature neither altered the provision nor reenacted it in a political atmosphere free of racial bias. Rather, all of the amendments to the provision were the result of judicial action. Johnson v. Governor of Fla., 405 F.3d 1214, 1222 (11th Cir.) (en banc) (emphasis added), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 1015, 126 S.Ct. 650, 163 L.Ed.2d 526 (2005). Accordingly, [i]n Hunter, the Supreme Court left open the precise question we confront here: whether a subsequent legislative re-enactment can eliminate the taint from a law that was originally enacted with discriminatory intent. Id. at 1223; see also id. at 1223 n. 20; Cotton v. Fordice, 157 F.3d 388, 391 & n. 7 (5th Cir.1998). However, the en banc Eleventh Circuit in Johnson faced a very similar issue to the one we now confront. In Johnson, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants, rejecting plaintiffs' argument that Florida's felon disenfranchisement law violated the Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs contended that racial animus motivated the adoption of Florida's criminal disenfranchisement provision in 1868 and this animus remains legally operative today, notwithstanding the fact that Florida altered and reenacted the provision in 1968. Johnson, 405 F.3d at 1217. After assuming, without deciding, that racial animus motivated the 1868 law, id. at 1223, the court held that Florida's felon disenfranchisement provision is constitutional because it was substantively altered and reenacted in 1968 in the absence of any evidence of racial bias, id. at 1225; see also Cotton, 157 F.3d at 391 (Because Mississippi's [deliberative] procedure resulted both in 1950 and in 1968 in a re-enactment of [the state's felon disenfranchisement constitutional provision originally enacted in 1890], each amendment superseded the previous provision and removed the discriminatory taint associated with the original version.); United States v. Johnson, 40 F.3d 436, 440 (D.C.Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1041, 115 S.Ct. 1412, 131 L.Ed.2d 297 (1995) (rejecting plaintiffs' equal protection challenge to a 1986 federal statute based in part on the court's finding that the undeniable racism that animated legislative debate leading to the passage of a 1914 statute criminalizing cocaine trafficking generally, long before the crack/powder distinction was contemplated, is of no relevance to our inquiry into the motives of the Congress that passed the 1986 Act (citing McCleskey, 481 U.S. at 298 n. 20, 107 S.Ct. 1756)). Here, the 1894 amendment to New York's constitutional provision was not inconsequential. The provision that existed until that time, as amended in 1874, provided that the legislature was required to pass a felon disenfranchisement law at its next session, but thereafter the passage of such laws was left to the legislature's discretion, as it had always been. See supra n. 2. In 1894, however, the constitutional delegates made permanent the mandatory aspect of the provision, and felon disenfranchisement laws have been required in New York ever since. This amendment served to substantively change how legislatures were permitted to consider, or no longer consider, whether felon disenfranchisement laws should be passedsuch laws were mandated. Given this substantive amendment to New York's constitutional provision and the lack of any allegations by plaintiffs of discriminatory intent reasonably contemporaneous with the challenged decision, McCleskey, 481 U.S. at 298 n. 20, 107 S.Ct. 1756, we cannot hold that plaintiffs state a plausible claim of intentional discrimination as to the 1894 constitutional provision, which is the bridge necessary for plaintiffs to sufficiently trace any disparate impact of New York Election Law § 5-106(2) to a purpose to discriminate on the basis of race, Feeney, 442 U.S. at 260, 99 S.Ct. 2282. We do not take lightly the possibility that a legislative body might seek to insulate from challenge a law known to have been originally enacted with a discriminatory purpose by (quietly) reenacting it without significant change. See Johnson, 405 F.3d at 1246 (Barkett, J., dissenting) (expressing concern that legislatures could continue to utilize statutes that were originally motivated by racial animus, and that continue to produce discriminatory effects, so long as they re-promulgate the statutes `deliberately' and without explicit evidence of an illicit motivation). But that concern is ameliorated here because (i) plaintiffs have not alleged any such bad faith on the part of the 1894 delegates; (ii) the 1894 amendment was not only deliberative, but was also substantive in scope; and (iii) there are simply no non-conclusory allegations of any kind as to discriminatory intent of the 1894 delegates even though the Supreme Court in Arlington Heights provides a non-exhaustive list of evidence that might establish discriminatory intent other than  explicit evidence of an illicit motivation. See 429 U.S. at 267, 97 S.Ct. 555 (stating that it is proper to consider [d]epartures from the normal procedural sequence or [s]ubstantive departures). Moreover, not only is a discriminatory purpose not alleged with respect to the 1894 enactment, but an `obvious alternative explanation' exists to support the propriety of the 1894 enactment. See Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1951-52 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 567, 127 S.Ct. 1955). As defendants contend, prisoner disenfranchisement is more likely the product of legitimate motives than invidious discrimination, as demonstrated by its adoption in virtually every state, its affirmative sanction in § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and its widespread support among New York politicians. See, e.g., Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24, 53-54, 94 S.Ct. 2655, 41 L.Ed.2d 551 (1974); Hayden I, 449 F.3d at 316-17 (describing ancient origin of disenfranchising those convicted of crimes dating back to ancient Athens and the Roman Republic, and noting that [t]oday ... every state except Maine and Vermont disenfranchises felons); N.Y. ELEC. LAW § 5-106, Historical and Statutory Notes; supra Background, Part II. [14] In some cases, notwithstanding [discriminatory] impact[,] the legitimate noninvidious purposes of a law cannot be missed. Feeney, 442 U.S. at 275, 99 S.Ct. 2282 (explaining that the distinction made by the Massachusetts veterans preference law is, as it seems to be, quite simply between veterans and nonveterans, not between men and women); see also Soberal-Perez v. Heckler, 717 F.2d 36, 42 (2d Cir.1983) (affirming dismissal of equal protection challenge to Secretary of Health and Human Services' failure to provide forms in Spanish because plaintiffs failed to suggest any evidence of discriminatory intent and legitimate noninvidious purpose was obvious), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 929, 104 S.Ct. 1713, 80 L.Ed.2d 186 (1984). Absent any adequately supported factual allegations as to discriminatory intent behind the enactment of the 1894 constitutional provision, we are compelled to find that the New York Constitution's requirement that the legislature pass felon disenfranchisement laws is based on the obvious, noninvidious purpose of disenfranchising felons, not Blacks or Latinos. Finally, there is another independent basis for our holding that plaintiffs fail to state a plausible claim of intentional discrimination. The 1894 constitutional provision, and all earlier constitutional provisions, simply authorize the New York legislature to enact felon disenfranchisement laws. That is, the constitutional provision does not operate to deny plaintiffs the right to vote, rather the statutory enactment pursuant to the constitutional provision does. Therefore, plaintiffs either must allege that the statutory enactments were motivated at least in part by discriminatory intentwhich they have completely failed to do in their amended complaint [15] or they must state a plausible claim that New York Election Law § 5-106 and all of its prior amendments were in fact passed because of the 1894 constitutional provision's mandate. It is possible that the legislature has acted since 1894 to enact felon disenfranchisement laws because it was required to under the constitutional provision. But given the more likely explanations discussed above and the laws' obvious, noninvidious distinction between felons and non-felons, it is not plausible, at least as plaintiffs' allegations presently read, that the New York legislature would have rejected a felon disenfranchisement statute if the statute had not been constitutionally required. Accordingly, plaintiffs' amended complaint fails to state a plausible claim that New York's felon disenfranchisement laws were enacted with discriminatory intent. Although they have alleged sufficient facts to support a claim that the 1821, 1846, and 1874 constitutional provisions were motivated at least in part by discriminatory intent, they fail to allege any facts to support a claim that the 1894 constitutional provision or any of the New York legislature's statutory enactments were passed because of racial animus. However, in light of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15's suggestion that a court should freely give leave [to amend] when justice so requires, Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a)(2), and our preference to allow a district court to evaluate such a motion by plaintiffs in the first instance, see Iqbal v. Ashcroft, 574 F.3d 820, 822 (2d Cir.2009) (per curiam), we will remand to the District Court to allow plaintiffs to seek leave to amend their deficient complaint as to this claim.