Lucious Abrams, JR., G. L. Avery, William Gary Chambers, SR., and Karen Watson v. Davida Johnson et al. (521 U.S. 74)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 19, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 521 U.S. 74 · 117 S. Ct. 1925
- Decided
- June 19, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. The electoral district lines for Georgia’s congressional delegation are before us a second time, appeal now being taken from the trial court’s rulings and determinations after our remand in Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900 (1995). The three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia was affirmed in Miller after it found the Eleventh Congressional District unconstitutional as then drawn. Race, we held, must not be a predominant factor in drawing the district lines. Id., at 915-917. Given the contorted shape of the district and the undue predominance of race in drawing its lines, it was unlikely the district could be redrawn without changing most or all of Georgia’s congressional districts, 11 in total number. The plan being challenged contained three majority-black districts, and after our remand the complaint was amended to challenge another of these, the then-Second District. The trial court found this district, too, was improperly drawn under the standards we confirmed in Miller. Johnson v. Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1552 (1995). For the task of drawing a new plan, the court deferred to Georgia’s Legislature, but the legislature could not reach agreement. The court then drew its owm plan, Johnson v. Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1556 (1995); we declined to stay the order; and the 1996 general…
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