Teague v. Attala County, Miss.

United States Court of Appeals,

Fifth Circuit.

No. 93-7001.

Bernard TEAGUE, Leroy Gladney and L.B. Winters, Plaintiffs-
Appellants,

v.

ATTALA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

April 1, 1994.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Mississippi.

Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, JONES, Circuit Judge, and FULLAM,*
District Judge.

PER CURIAM:

In this Section 2 voting rights case and one person-one vote

case, the district court found that appellants failed to carry

their burden of proof 807 F.Supp. 392. Although we are persuaded

that the court did not clearly err in rejecting the one person-one

vote claim,1 the court's findings in regard to the vote dilution

claim were incomplete. Consequently, to this extent, we vacate and

remand for further consideration.

Appellants contended that the single-member redistricting plan

for Attala County's five supervisors, five election commissioners,

and two justice court judges diluted the influence of the county's

407 black voting age population in violation of Section 2 of the

Voting Rights Act and under-weighted votes contrary to the

*
District Judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,
sitting by designation.
1
No more need be said about the equal protection claim.

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fourteenth amendment. As a result, no black citizen has been

elected to county-wide office in modern times. Blacks have been

elected as county supervisor or county election commissioner from

a majority-black district only as a result of the favorable 1980

redistricting. When the county attempted to redistrict after the

1990 census, it rejected the U.S. Justice Department's insistence

that its redistricting include two rather than one majority-black

district. Instead, Attala County chose simply to use existing

districts.

At trial, appellants used statistical evidence to prove their

case. They attempted to show that in white-majority precincts (807

plus white), during eight elections between white and black

candidates, an average of only 127 of the white voters voted for

the black candidates. White voters in these precincts never gave

support to a black candidate in a contested election for county

office. In addition to this "extreme case analysis", they offered

evidence of racial polarization in the form of an ecological

regression analysis. The regression analysis considered eight

elections that pitted black against white candidates. In the

majority-white district analyzed, appellants' experts contended

that 877 of black voters supported black candidates while only 157

of white voters did so. This statistical evidence, together with

the relative lack of black candidate success in Attala County,

formed the core of appellants' case.

Both parties offered considerable additional evidence in

contesting the two disputed Gingles issues: whether the minority

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group is politically cohesive, and whether the white majority vote

sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the

minority's preferred candidate. Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30,

50-51, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 2759-60, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986).2 The Supreme

Court has held the Gingles factors equally applicable to challenges

to single-member districts as to multi-member districts. Growe v.

Emison, 507 U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 1075, 1084, 122 L.Ed.2d 388

(1993); Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 1149,

1157, 122 L.Ed.2d 500 (1993). In Voinovich, the Court explained

the dynamics of vote dilution as applied to minority vote

"fragmentation" or "packing":

In the context of a single-member districts, the usual
device for diluting minority voting power is the manipulation
of district lines. A politically cohesive minority group that
is large enough to constitute the majority in a single-member
district has a good chance of electing its candidate of
choice, if the group is placed in a district where it
constitutes a majority. Dividing the minority group among
various districts so that it is a majority in none may prevent
the group from electing its candidate of choice: If the
majority in each district votes as a bloc against the minority
candidate, the fragmented minority group will be unable to
muster sufficient votes in any district to carry its candidate
to victory.

... How such concentration or "packing" [of minority voters
within a district] may dilute minority voting strength is not
difficult to conceptualize. A minority group, for example,
might have sufficient numbers to constitute a majority in
three districts. So apportioned, the group inevitably will
elect three candidates of its choice, assuming the group is
sufficiently cohesive. But if the group is packed into two
districts in which it constitutes a super-majority, it will be
assured only two candidates.

2
The first Gingles standard, that the minority is
sufficiently large and compact to constitute a majority in a
single member district, is not disputed. Gingles, 478 U.S. at
56, 106 S.Ct. at 2769.

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 The district court, in rejecting appellants' contentions, held

that appellants did not prove racial polarization in voting, and it

noted that their "extreme case analysis" only included 80%-plus

white precincts and therefore demonstrated only white cohesion. In

a later part of the opinion, he summarily dismissed appellants'

regression analysis as "non-demonstrative." In the alternative,

the court found that even if voting in Attala County was racially

polarized, in the totality of circumstances, blacks still have

equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. The

court cited black candidates' successes in majority-black districts

and gradual improvements in the economic condition of black

residents, blaming any black electoral failures on voter apathy.

The district court is not obliged to accept statistical

evidence as conclusive on the question whether racially polarized

voting exists. Magnolia Bar Association, Inc. v. Lee, 994 F.2d

1143, 1149 (5th Cir.1993) ("the plaintiffs have not offered any

authority, and we can find none, for their assertion that the

district court may only rely on expert conclusions in determining

whether white bloc voting is legally significant or whether

elections in which whites do not vote as a bloc are an

aberration.") But in making its intensely fact-specific inquiry

here, the district court ought to have discussed appellants'

statistical evidence more thoroughly because that was the principal

evidence they offered and because their statistics had at least

surface plausibility. Further, the district court findings on the

subjects of racial polarization and minority political cohesion are

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broad and general and not explicitly tied to the testimony,

although many witnesses were called in the case.

This court is unable to discharge our appellate function in

voting rights cases without more guidance by the trial court

concerning its credibility choices on the welter of evidence before

it. Westwego Citizens for Better Government v. City of Westwego,

872 F.2d 1201 (5th Cir.1989); Velasquez v. City of Abilene, 725

F.2d 1017, 1020-21 (5th Cir.1984) (court must discuss all the

substantial evidence contrary to its opinion). Consequently, we

must reverse and remand to obtain revised findings of fact and

conclusions of law that will directly evaluate appellants'

statistical evidence and will more comprehensively refer to the

other evidence in the record, tying that evidence directly to the

Gingles preconditions in light of Growe and Voinovich. In so

doing, of course, we do not intimate any view on the merits of the

court's credibility choices or its ultimate conclusion.

For the foregoing reasons, the district court's judgment is

VACATED and REMANDED in regard to the Section 2 Voting Rights Act

claim; it is AFFIRMED in regard to the fourteenth amendment claim

for redistricting based on the one person-one vote principle.

AFFIRMED in part, VACATED and REMANDED in part.

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