United States v. Manning

215 F. Supp. 272, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10325
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Louisiana
DecidedFebruary 23, 1963
DocketCiv. A. 8257
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 215 F. Supp. 272 (United States v. Manning) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Manning, 215 F. Supp. 272, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10325 (W.D. La. 1963).

Opinion

WISDOM, Circuit Judge.

In this action the State of Louisiana strikes at the vitals of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. These vitals are the power of a federal district court to make a find *275 ing of a pattern of discrimination in the denial of registration to Negroes and the concomitant power of the court itself to / redress the grievance or to use a voting/

referee, should the court decide to utilize a referee as an arm of the court in undoing the discrimination. 42 U.S.C.A. § 1971(e). 1 *The Attorney General of Louisiana contends that the statute is unconstitutional because it (1) invades rights reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment, (2) delegates a non-judicial function to the district court, and (3) injects the court into a matter that is not a “case or controversy.” These contentions are embodied in the State’s complaint and motion which were not filed in the form of an original law-suit but were filed, captioned, and numbered in United States v. Manning et al., the lawsuit filed initially by the Attorney General of the United States under 42 U.S. C.A. § 1971. This three-judge court was constituted to consider the State’s complaint and motion. (All other proceedings in this case have been heard by a single judge.) At the conclusion of the hearing on the State’s complaint and motion, the court rendered an informal opinion from the bench upholding the constitutionality of the Act. We announced that our reasons would be stated more fully in a formal opinion. 2 We now state these reasons.

First, however, we review briefly the proceedings leading up to the present phase of the action,

April 28, 1961, the Attorney General of the United States filed a complaint alleging that Cecil Manning, registrar of voters of East Carroll Parish, Louisiana, was discriminating against Negro applicants for registration. Under 42 U.S. C.A. § 1971(c), as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the State of Louisiana was named a party defendant. May 30, 1962, the district court entered judgment for the plaintiff on the finding that Negro citizens in the parish had been deprived of their right to vote, in violation of 42 U.S.C.A. § 1971(a), “pursuant to a pattern or practice” within the meaning of Section 1971(e). Thereafter, 78 Negro citizens of East Carroll Parish applied to the court under the provisions of the statute here challenged for orders declaring them qualified to vote under state law. July 12, 1962, after an ex parte hearing, 3 ****the court entered an order finding that twenty-eight of the applicants were qualified to vote. A copy of this order was served upon each of the parties, and the plaintiff and defendants were allowed an opportunity to file objections. The State of Louisiana filed objections to the court’s findings with respect to all twenty-eight applicants found qualified; the United States filed an ob *276 jection to the court’s finding with respect to one of the applicants found unqualified. A hearing on the objections was set for the afternoon of July 23.

On the morning of July 23, the State of Louisiana filed a “complaint and motion” alleging that the court, in proceeding to act upon the applications of Negroes pursuant to 42 U.S.C.A. § 1971(e), was “acting as registrar,” and that the provisions of Section 1971(e) authorizing the judge so to act were an unconstitutional delegation of non-judicial powers upon a federal judge. The State asked that a three-judge court be convened under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2284; that the court declare Section 1971(e) unconstitutional and enjoin its enforcement. 4

The State did not name the persons against whom the injunction was to run. With its “complaint and motion”, however, the State filed a motion for temporary restraining order against United States District Judge Edwin F. Hunter, Jr., “his subordinates, agents, and his successors and assigns from executing or enforcing the terms or provisions of 42 U.S.C.A. 1971(e).” Judge Hunter, before whom the present litigation was pending, recused himself. Judge Wisdom, sitting in Judge Hunter’s place by special assignment, denied the motion. The court Set the matter for hearing on the merits the following day.

In accordance with the State’s request, a three-judge district court was convened. July 24,1962, the court heard the matter and, after a short recess at the conclusion of the hearing, the court denied the relief sought by the State and dismissed the “complaint and motion.” D.C., 206 F.Supp. 623 (1962).

I.

The Tenth Amendment as a Barrier to Federal Action under the Civil Rights Act

A. Background. We approach the problem posed by the State’s reliance on the Tenth Amendment with unalloyed respect for the values of federalism and for the root-principle of American federalism' — fractionation of governmental power through the constitutional recognition of the standing of states as political entities, not as administrative divisions of a central government. We have fixed firmly in our minds counsels of caution from two profound students of federalism. In measured terms Woodrow Wilson pointed out:

“The question of the relation of the States to the federal government is the cardinal question of our constitutional system. At every turn of our national development we have been brought face to face with it, and no definition either of statesmen or of judges has ever quieted or decided it * * *

“It is difficult to discuss so critical and fundamental a question calmly. * * * [Bjecause it lies at the heart of our constitutional system, to decide it wrongly is to alter the whole structure and operation of our government, for good or for evil * * * A sobering sense of responsibility should fall upon every one who handles it”. 5 (Emphasis ours.)

Justice Frankfurter has cautioned:

“The interpenetrations of modern society have not wiped out state lines. It is not for us to make inroads upon our federal system either by indifference to its maintenance or excessive regard for the unifying forces of modern technology. Scholastic reasoning may prove that no activity is isolated within the boundaries of a single State, but that cannot justify absorption of legislative *277 power by the United States over every activity.” 6

But nothing in the language or history of the Tenth Amendment gives the State exclusive sovereignty over the election processes against the federal government’s otherwise constitutional exer- , cise of a power within the scope of Ar-" tide I, Section 4 of the Constitution and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. In Justice Holmes’s phrase, this “is not a controversy between equals.” 7 It is necessary at this time to say again, and underscore it, that within the area of delegated power, express or implied,. the Tenth Amendment does not reduce the powers of the United States.

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Bluebook (online)
215 F. Supp. 272, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10325, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-manning-lawd-1963.