Court Opinion

ID: 9651897
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:57:41.425284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:42.848911
License: Public Domain

BOWEN, District Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
With portions of the majority opinion in this case, I concur; as to its treatment of the most straightforward issue, I dissent.
The majority opinion has all of the indicia of apparent validity: a balanced statement of the facts; a wealth of citations and case references; and a scholarly style. Nevertheless, it is incorrect on the most important point in the case. I have no quarrel with the majority opinion through and including section 111(B)(1) thereof. Like it or not, where there are changes in the geography of a judicial circuit within a “covered jurisdiction”, the Attorney General’s preclearance is required. Indeed, the need for preclearance of the legislative enactments which change the geography of a judicial circuit has never been seriously questioned in this case. Under present law, every change in the demography of a judicial circuit requires preclearance.
Nor do I have any question in my mind that Haith, in its summary affirmance posture, stands for the proposition that the Voting Rights Act applies to judicial electoral procedures. However, in the laborious research which the parties and this Court have performed, there is no binding precedent that the mere increase in the number of judges in an existing, otherwise validly composed judicial circuit, is a change in a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting.”
The majority believes that a duplication or other multiplication of the status quo, by the mere addition of a judgeship, is a covered change because of a perceived “potential for discrimination” therein. The proffered potential for discrimination is imaginary. This potential for discrimination (a) presumes the existence of factors which are not grounded in fact; and, (b) presupposes that some novel and ingenious method might be crafted to accommodate the wishes of plaintiffs and their class whenever a new judgeship is needed. While it is true that only a potential for discrimination, not a discriminatory purpose or effect, must be shown, the acceptance of the genuineness of the potential for discrimination proffered by the plaintiffs in this case requires a degree of credulity which I cannot muster, even under the liberal construction principles of the Voting Rights Act.
The majority sees a potential for discrimination in the addition of a judgeship to an existing district because the added judge must be appointed by the governor, must later run for designated post, and must be elected by a majority vote in a circuit-wide election. In other words, there is a “potential for discrimination” because the new judge will obtain and hold office in the same way as every Superior Court judge in Georgia! Also, the majority sees a potential for discrimination because, when additional judges are needed to handle the judicial business of a district, the Legislature has not crafted the boundaries of districts so as to produce a select constituency which will elect a judge through the racially polarized bloc vote of the plaintiff class. This proposition is based upon erroneous assumptions and logical fallacies.
*1487I live in a Georgia city which elected a black mayor by majority vote in a 1981 city-wide election. Our county commission has thrice been chaired by a black man. A black Superior Court judge runs unopposed for re-election. The man who will soon occupy the governor’s office in the former capital of the Confederacy is part Negro. Yet, I am supposed to assume that whites and blacks always vote in racially polarized bloc patterns. Common sense tells me I cannot. If Georgia is ever to emerge from the indignity of federal scrutiny of electoral minutiae, it will occur by assuming the positive, not the negative. Similarly, I observe that in my experience nothing has done more to perpetuate racial polarization and promote misunderstanding between well-intended citizens than the frictions inherent in the continued selective application of the Voting Rights Act. Furthermore, I can imagine no set of facts more likely to foster racial bloc voting than the “single-shot” voting tactic to which the majority refers in Section III of their opinion (see footnote 12).
Judicial service is unique in government. Judges are human, but we are obliged to adhere to certain fictions relative to judicial service. For example, judges are fair, impartial, and serve only to do equal justice in the cases that come before them, regardless of the race, position, station in life, affiliation or connection of the parties therein. These properties in the compound of judicial service are recognized by the highest legal authority. “State judges as well as federal judges swear allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, and there is no reason to think that because of their frequent differences of opinions as to how that document should be interpreted, all are not doing their mortal best to discharge their oath of office.” Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 549, 101 S.Ct. 764, 770, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981).
Any suggestion that the Legislature of Georgia might seriously entertain the notion of gerrymandering within one or more of its judicial circuits a precinct, wherein a person preferred by the plaintiff class might assuredly be elected, is anathematic and inimical to all Anglo-American tenets of judicial independence and impartiality. Every Negro and every Caucasian is entitled to the same fair justice from a Superi- or Court judge, regardless of the race of the judge or the race of the majority who may have elected that judge. Obviously, a judge cannot have a constituency in the usual sense.
A judge does not sit upon a board or commission and represents no group or district. A Superior Court judge presides alone, with county-wide jurisdiction, in the courts of the counties of his judicial circuit. In appropriate circumstances, a Superior Court judge may be detailed to serve outside the home circuit.
The county is the smallest unit or precinct which can be practically utilized in the election of Superior Court judges. Given the county-wide jurisdiction of a Superior Court judge, it would be wholly inappropriate for such a judge to be elected by any group smaller than the constituency of the county as a whole. The suggestion that the Legislature might develop some plan to provide a “safe district” to assure the election of a candidate chosen by the plaintiff class is rank speculation. There are 159 counties and 45 judicial circuits in Georgia. This case alone involves 43 added judge-ships. The options open to the Legislature are limited. Confusion is the only likely result of an attempt to “gerrymander” the counties so as to assure the election of the judicial candidate of a racial group.
The majority is willing to adopt the plaintiffs’ vernacular, “anti single-shot provisions.” I am not. While majority-vote, designated-post, circuit-wide election rules may be called “anti single-shot” provisions by some, I am prepared only to refer to such rules as a uniform, state-wide, fair and consistently applied system for the selection and maintenance of a highly qualified, dedicated judiciary. The “single-shot” voting technique described by the majority, as applied to the election of a Superior Court judge, makes my hair stand on end. Such “single-shot” tactics are unlikely to result in a judicial selection which is based upon qualifications and judicial temperament. A voting plan which is otherwise *1488valid, but does not permit such “single-shot” tactics in the election of judges, is not thereby necessarily infected with a potential for discrimination. In this case, in each of the judicial circuits to which judge-ships have been added, the Legislature has done no more than increase the number of judges by a method which, admirably, conforms every Superior Court judgeship in the state to the same process. Thus, there are independent and very legitimate reasons for the continuation of the existing election procedures when a new judgeship is added to a judicial circuit.
The majority identifies the mere addition of a judgeship in an existing district as a potential for discrimination because “if another judicial post is added ..., such provisions may well be thwarting what would otherwise be an opportunity to conduct a successful single-shot voting campaign.” This logic assumes that with the creation of each additional judgeship, the Legislature can concoct some discrete voting procedure, applicable to that judicial circuit alone, which, by boundary alignment, “single-shot” voting practices or otherwise, will advance the interests of the plaintiff class. The implicit assumption that the legislature might be willing to discard a working uniform, state-wide procedure for the selection of all Superior Court judges, and steer a new course leading to different procedures for each circuit, is preposterous. Because Superior Court judges have county-wide jurisdiction within their circuits, because they may, on occasion, be designated from one circuit to another, and because their courts are vested with general civil and criminal jurisdiction in each of the counties of the State of Georgia, the state has a palpable, genuine, independent, legitimate interest in maintaining a uniform method of selecting Superior Court judges of high caliber. This interest far outweighs any concern which the majority should have for a volubly touted “potential for discrimination” which, at best, is hypothetical and ephemeral.
In short, the majority has decided that the Legislature of Georgia has not done what it could never be expected to do in the first place. Even in a voting rights case a potential for discrimination should be more than a chimera. To provide a basis for such drastic relief, a potential for discrimination should, at the least, be genuine and reasonable. I cannot conclude that some affirmative action-based “balkanization” of judicial voting procedures across the state is a likely or appropriate prospect. The proffered potential for discrimination, therefore, is neither genuine nor reasonable.
Finally, it is unfair to describe the existing plan for electing most of the Superior Court judges of this state as containing “anti single-shot provisions.” The laws which provide for the selection of Georgia’s judges, many of which have been precleared, are not “anti-anything.” They are simply an extension of existing provisions which draw the highly desirable mantle of uniformity over each such position existing within the State of Georgia.
While I will not engage in what might be termed “result oriented” logic, I will express my concern for the far-reaching effect of the majority’s conclusion in this case. The decision regarding changes in circuit boundaries affects relatively few counties and judges. Relief in the form of a return to the last valid plan is workable, albeit burdensome. However, the decision as to 43 added judgeships is a wholesale and unwarranted intrusion into Georgia’s judicial system and the fundamentals of federalism.
In the palliative language of Section V of their opinion, the majority recognizes the chaos which would certainly result if the elections of sitting judges were invalidated. The apologia of Section YI, the relatively mild form of relief ordered, and the majority’s assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, this court’s decision as to judge-ships added over the years will, if implemented, work much mischief, hardship and expense within the State of Georgia for years to come. Despite the majority’s anticipatory comment, “the validity of the actions taken by these judges is in no way implicated by our decision here,” many unhappy litigants in civil and criminal cases may raise that question anew. My imagi*1489nation is not broad enough to estimate the number and the cost of the resultant habeas corpus proceedings alone. Even if unsuccessful, such cases will be filed and the state will be forced to defend them.
In this action the role of the three-judge court is indeed limited. With respect to the creation of new judgeships in existing circuits, our sole inquiry is whether the proposed change falls within Section 5. My view is that a mere change in the number of judges is not a change with respect to the election of judges. There is at issue here no standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that already precleared or in force as of November 1, 1964. There is no argument that the existing judicial circuits in which judge-ships have been added are somehow otherwise infirm (see footnote 11). The mere replication of a judicial position in a circuit does not result in a covered change. If anything, the addition of a judgeship is a legislative reiteration of the status quo.
Congress intended the Voting Rights Act to cover judicial elections (see majority opinion Section 111(A)). However, this conclusion does not end the inquiry into congressional intent. The plaintiffs’ arguments, which the majority hasten to embrace, imply that Section 5 preclearance is an undertaking easily satisfied. However, as the defendants have demonstrated, preclearance is a laborious process which requires the submission of a tremendous amount of documentation. Preclearance is not accomplished by writing a simple letter. The onus on the state in compiling and organizing the information necessary to comply with the preclearance requirement is great. I cannot believe that the Congress intended to place upon “covered” states the burden of preclearing each new judgeship added to existing judicial circuits, where election procedures have already been precleared. The majority have cited no authority that such was Congress’ intention in passing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The case law cited by the majority merely holds that the Voting Rights Act should be liberally construed. However, this is not authority for the plaintiffs’ proposition that adding judgeships to existing judicial circuits using precleared election procedures is a change in a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting.”
The potentials for discrimination to which the majority anchor their reasoning is imaginary. The state’s overriding independent, legitimate interest in maintaining a uniform election procedure is clearly shown. Accordingly, with respect to the issue of the addition of judgeships in existing circuits, the plaintiffs’ complaint should be dismissed.
As do the majority, I have great concern about any relief to be ordered in this case. The one thing of which I am certain is that whatever the relief, it will serve to undermine the confidence of the public in the federal and state court systems and the judiciary as a whole. I agree with Judge Dubina when he said, “there is a real possibility that no fair, reasonable, and equitable remedy can ever be fashioned to redress whatever ... violations may exist in the instant case. Any remedy may only serve to further polarize the voting blocs which currently exist, and will almost certainly result in the removal from the bench of a number of decent, fair and competent state judges with many years of dedicated service. In remedying one injustice this court may, in effect, be creating others.” Southern Christian Leadership Conf. v. Siegelman, 714 F.Supp. 511, 521 (M.D.Ala.1989). We embark upon a dangerous voyage. We are about to supplant the will and wisdom of the elected Legislature of Georgia with decrees that are the product of the well-intended but inexperienced judicial mind. The Legislature has been creating judgeships for two hundred years. We have only just begun. As Justice Stevens cogently noted, “Because judges may not possess such expertise, however, I am afraid the Court is planting seeds that may produce an unexpected harvest.” Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613, 645, 102 S.Ct. 3272, 3290, 73 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1982) (Stevens, J., dissenting).
While I reject the proffered potential for discrimination which the majority adopts, while I cannot accept as a premise to any *1490decision the concept that blacks or whites will always vote in racially polarized bloc patterns, and while I disagree with the majority opinion that the mere addition of judgeships constitutes a covered change requiring preclearance by the Attorney General I am also constrained to say that the relief ordered by the majority is about as ameliorative as could be hoped under the circumstances.
Accordingly, with respect to the covered changes as to which I concur with the majority, I concur in the relief ordered. With respect to the judicial circuits where the number of judgeships has only been increased, I would deny any relief to plaintiffs.