Opinion ID: 111736
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: ultimate determination of vote dilution

Text: Finally, appellants and the United States dispute the District Court's ultimate conclusion that the multimember districting scheme at issue in this case deprived black voters of an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.
As an initial matter, both North Carolina and the United States contend that the District Court's ultimate conclusion that the challenged multimember districts operate to dilute black citizens' votes is a mixed question of law and fact subject to de novo review on appeal. In support of their proposed standard of review, they rely primarily on Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of U. S., Inc., 466 U. S. 485 (1984), a case in which we reconfirmed that, as a matter of constitutional law, there must be independent appellate review of evidence of actual malice in defamation cases. Appellants and the United States argue that because a finding of vote dilution under amended  2 requires the application of a rule of law to a particular set of facts it constitutes a legal, rather than factual, determination. Reply Brief for Appellants 7; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18-19. Neither appellants nor the United States cite our several precedents in which we have treated the ultimate finding of vote dilution as a question of fact subject to the clearly-erroneous standard of Rule 52(a). See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S., at 622-627; City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 183 (1980); White v. Regester, 412 U. S., at 765-770. Cf. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564, 573 (1985). In Regester, supra, we noted that the District Court had based its conclusion that minority voters in two multimember districts in Texas had less opportunity to participate in the political process than majority voters on the totality of the circumstances and stated that we are not inclined to overturn these findings, representing as they do a blend of history and an intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of the . . . multimember district in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise. Id., at 769-770. Quoting this passage from Regester with approval, we expressly held in Rogers v. Lodge, supra , that the question whether an at-large election system was maintained for discriminatory purposes and subsidiary issues, which include whether that system had the effect of diluting the minority vote, were questions of fact, reviewable under Rule 52(a)'s clearly-erroneous standard. 458 U. S., at 622-623. Similarly, in City of Rome v. United States , we declared that the question whether certain electoral structures had a discriminatory effect, in the sense of diluting the minority vote, was a question of fact subject to clearly-erroneous review. 446 U. S., at 183. We reaffirm our view that the clearly-erroneous test of Rule 52(a) is the appropriate standard for appellate review of a finding of vote dilution. As both amended  2 and its legislative history make clear, in evaluating a statutory claim of vote dilution through districting, the trial court is to consider the totality of the circumstances and to determine, based upon a searching practical evaluation of the `past and present reality,'  S. Rep., at 30 (footnote omitted), whether the political process is equally open to minority voters.  `This determination is peculiarly dependent upon the facts of each case,'  Rogers, supra, at 621, quoting Nevett v. Sides, 571 F. 2d 209, 224 (CA5 1978), and requires an intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of the contested electoral mechanisms. 458 U. S., at 622. The fact that amended  2 and its legislative history provide legal standards which a court must apply to the facts in order to determine whether  2 has been violated does not alter the standard of review. As we explained in Bose, Rule 52(a) does not inhibit an appellate court's power to correct errors of law, including those that may infect a so-called mixed finding of law and fact, or a finding of fact that is predicated on a misunderstanding of the governing rule of law. 466 U. S., at 501, citing Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S. 273, 287 (1982); Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc., 456 U. S. 844, 855, n. 15 (1982). Thus, the application of the clearly-erroneous standard to ultimate findings of vote dilution preserves the benefit of the trial court's particular familiarity with the indigenous political reality without endangering the rule of law.
The District Court in this case carefully considered the totality of the circumstances and found that in each district racially polarized voting; the legacy of official discrimination in voting matters, education, housing, employment, and health services; and the persistence of campaign appeals to racial prejudice acted in concert with the multimember districting scheme to impair the ability of geographically insular and politically cohesive groups of black voters to participate equally in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice. It found that the success a few black candidates have enjoyed in these districts is too recent, too limited, and, with regard to the 1982 elections, perhaps too aberrational, to disprove its conclusion. Excepting House District 23, with respect to which the District Court committed legal error, see supra, at 77, we affirm the District Court's judgment. We cannot say that the District Court, composed of local judges who are well acquainted with the political realities of the State, clearly erred in concluding that use of a multimember electoral structure has caused black voters in the districts other than House District 23 to have less opportunity than white voters to elect representatives of their choice. The judgment of the District Court is Affirmed in part and reversed in part. APPENDIX A TO OPINION OF BRENNAN, J..Percentages of Votes Cast by Black and White Voters for Black Candidates in the Five Contested Districts. Senate District 22 Primary General White Black White Black 1978 (Alexander) 47 87 41 94 1980 (Alexander) 23 78 n/a n/a 1982 (Polk) 32 83 33 94 House District 21 Primary General White Black White Black 1978 (Blue) 21 76 n/a n/a 1980 (Blue) 31 81 44 90 1982 (Blue) 39 82 45 91 House District 23 Primary General White Black White Black 1978 Senate Barns (Repub.) n/a n/a 17 5 1978 House Clement 10 89 n/a n/a Spaulding 16 92 37 89 1980 House Spaulding n/a n/a 49 90 1982 House Clement 26 32 n/a n/a Spaulding 37 90 43 89 House District 36 Primary General White Black White Black 1980 (Maxwell) 22 71 28 92 1982 (Berry) 50 79 42 92 1982 (Richardson) 39 71 29 88 House District 39 Primary General White Black White Black 1978 House Kennedy, H. 28 76 32 93 Norman 8 29 n/a n/a Ross 17 53 n/a n/a Sumter (Repub.) n/a n/a 33 25 House District 39 Primary General White Black White Black 1980 House Kennedy, A. 40 86 32 96 Norman 18 36 n/a n/a 1980 Senate Small 12 61 n/a n/a 1982 House Hauser 25 80 42 87 Kennedy, A. 36 87 46 94 590 F. Supp., at 369-371. APPENDIX B TO OPINION OF BRENNAN, J..Black Candidates Elected From 7 Originally Contested Districts District Prior to (No. Seats) 1972 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 House 8 (4) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 House 21 (6) 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 House 23 (3) 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 House 36 (8) 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 House 39 (5) 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 Senate 2 (2) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Senate 22 (4) 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 See Brief for Appellees, table printed between pages 8 and 9; App. 93-94.