WRIGHT ET AL. v. ROCKEFELLER, GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK, ET AL.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

No. 96. Argued November 19, 1963. Decided February 17, 1964. Appellants, voters in the four congressional districts in Manhattan Island, brought suit before a three-judge District Court challenging the constitutionality of part of New York's 1961 congressional apportionment statute. They charged that, in violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment, irregularly shaped districts were drawn with racial considerations in mind, resulting in one district which excluded non-white citizens and those of Puerto Rican origin, who were largely concentrated in one of the other districts. Held: Finding of District Court that appellants had failed to show that the challenged part of the apportionment act was a "state contrivance" to segregate on the basis of race or place of origin, that the New York Legislature was motivated by racial considerations or that, in fact, it drew the districts on racial lines was not clearly erroneous. Pp. 53-58.

(a) Where the evidence was "equally, or more, persuasive" that racial considerations had not motivated the State Legislature than that such considerations had motivated the Legislature, the findings of the District Court that the appellants had failed to prove their case will not be disturbed. Pp. 56-57.

(b) The high concentration in one area of colored and Puerto Rican voters made it difficult to draw districts to approximate an equal division of these groups among the districts, even assuming that to be permissible. P. 57.

211 F. Supp. 460, affirmed.

Justin N. Feldman argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Jerome T. Orans and Elsie M. Quinlan.

Irving Galt, Assistant Solicitor General of New York, and Jawn A. Sandifer argued the cause for appellees. With Mr. Galt on the brief for appellees Rockefeller et al.

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Opinion of the Court.

were Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney General of New York, Sheldon Raab, Assistant Attorney General, and Barry Mahoney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Mr. Sandifer also filed a brief for appellees Powell et al.

MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellants, citizens and registered voters of New York's Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Congressional Districts, all in New York County (the Island of Manhattan), brought this action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York challenging the constitutionality of that part of Chapter 980 of New York's 1961 congressional apportionment statute which defined these four districts.1 The Governor and several other New York state officials were named as defendants. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, who represents the Eighteenth Congressional District, and several other New York County political leaders were permitted to intervene as defendants supporting the constitutionality of the apportionment act. Appellants charged that the part of the New York Act in question deprived them of rights guaranteed by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and by the Fifteenth Amendment, which provides that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Their complaint alleged that:

"Chapter 980 establishes irrational, discriminatory and unequal Congressional Districts in the County of New York and segregates eligible voters by race and place of origin. It is contrived to create one district, the 17th Congressional District, which excludes

1N. Y. State Law, § 111.

720-509 O-65-8

Opinion of the Court.

376 U.S.

non-white citizens and citizens of Puerto Rican origin and which is over-represented in comparison to the other three districts in the County of New York. The 18th, 19th and 20th Congressional Districts have been drawn so as to include the overwhelming number of non-white citizens and citizens of Puerto Rican origin in the County of New York and to be under-represented in relation to the 17th Congressional District."

2

The case was heard by a District Court of three judges. During these hearings, counsel for appellants made it clear that their case did not depend on "under-representation because of the variation in the size of the Congressional districts"; it was rather, he said, "a case of ghettoizing the Island of Manhattan" so as "to create a white Congressional district and a non-white Congressional district." "I think," counsel said, "the only province of the Court in this area is to determine whether or not these districts have been created with racial considerations in mind, and, if they have, or if the results of this districting, the effect of the statute is to create racially segregated areas, we maintain that it violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments." Appellants offered maps, statistics, and some oral evidence designed to prove their charge that it was impossible to have districts such as these were unless they "were drawn with regard to race." The statistics showed that the Eighteenth District contained 86.3% Negroes and Puerto Ricans; the Nineteenth, 28.5%; the Twentieth, 27.5%; and the Seventeenth, 5.1%. The evidence also showed irregularities in the boundaries of the districts and some varia

2 The complaint also stated that unconstitutional districting had existed for many years but that repeated efforts to bring about legislative correction had been of no avail, partly because of unconstitutional apportionment of the state legislature. Appellants did not offer proof to support these allegations, however.

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Opinion of the Court.

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tion in population among the four. Appellees presented no oral testimony but did offer historical maps, a table from the Bureau of the Census, and a message from the President to the Congress on the subject of congressional apportionment.

A majority of the District Court found that appellants had not made out their case on the crucial factual issues.* Judge Moore broadly found that "[n]o proof was offered by any party that the specific boundaries created by Chapter 980 were drawn on racial lines or that the Legislature was motivated by considerations of race, creed or country of origin in creating the districts." He concluded, "Plaintiffs having failed upon the facts and the law to establish any violation of their constitutional rights as a result of the action of the New York Legislature in enacting Chapter 980 of the Laws of 1961, the complaint must be dismissed." Judge Feinberg concurred in Judge Moore's result because he, too, believed that appellants had

"not met their burden of proving that the boundaries of the new 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th Congressional Districts were drawn along racial lines, as they allege.

Plaintiffs did introduce evidence which might justify an inference that racial considerations motivated the 1961 reapportionment of congressional districts in Manhattan. However, other inferences, as set forth below, are equally or more justifiable. Plaintiffs have a difficult burden to meet in attack

3 The population of the Seventeenth Congressional District was 382,320; the Eighteenth, 431,330; the Nineteenth, 445,175; and the Twentieth, 439,456.

4211 F. Supp. 460.

5 Id., at 462.

6 Id., at 468.

Opinion of the Court.

376 U.S.

ing the constitutionality of this state statute. . . . Upon analysis, I do not think that burden has been met.

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'. . . In short, based upon the entire record, I do not feel that plaintiffs have proved their case." Judge Murphy dissented. He viewed the evidence as "tantamount for all practical purposes, to a mathematical demonstration" that the legislation was "solely concerned with segregating" white voters from colored and Puerto Rican voters "by fencing colored and Puerto Rican citizens out of the 17th District and into a district of their own (the 18th)" and as establishing "per se a prima facie case of a legislative intent to draw congressional district lines in the 17th and 18th Districts on the basis of race and national origin."

" 8

While a number of other matters have been discussed, we find it necessary to decide only the first question presented in the jurisdictional statement, namely "[w]hether appellants sustained their burden of proving that the portion of Chapter 980. . . which delineates the boundaries of the Congressional districts in Manhattan Island segregates eligible voters by race and place of origin in violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment." We accept the findings of the majority of the District Court that appellants failed to prove that the New York Legislature was either motivated by racial considerations or in fact drew the districts on racial lines. Compare Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. It may be true, as Judge Feinberg thought, that there was evidence which could have supported inferences that racial considerations might have moved the

" Id., at 468, 469, 471.

Id., at 472-473.