"Dedicated and able members of the bar cannot be expected to know how to advise regarding the election of county school board members in the other 65 counties of Alabama. The panel majority's opinion is an invitation to litigants to bring them all to our court, one at a time, so that successive panels can say who may constitutionally vote for board members of each system"
How later courts described this case
- "Dedicated and able members of the bar cannot be expected to know how to advise regarding the election of county school board members in the other 65 counties of Alabama. The panel majority's opinion is an invitation to litigants to bring them all to our court, one at a time, so that successive panels can say who may constitutionally vote for board members of each system"
- the county system operated a regional school for the multi-handicapped, drawing students from four or five counties, and five to fifteen students residing in the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, attended this county school
- County electors challenged Alabama statute permitting city residents to vote for county school board members. Court of Appeals found no substantial interest in city residents entitling them to vote for county board members.
- each system maintained its own vocational schools, but the county transported four students to the city vocational school and “a few city students would occasionally come to the county vocational school to obtain classes not offered by the city school”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JAMES C. HILL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Being persuaded that our panel is bound by the prior resolution of this same issue in Creel v. Freeman, 531 F.2d 286 (5th Cir. 1976), I would affirm the judgment of the District Court. While there are some differences in the facts in these two cases, as there are factual differences between any one of our cases and all others, the rule of law laid down in Creel , until and unless modified by our Court en banc or by the Supreme Court, should control.
By carving a new facet on the rule, we have now announced that the Constitution permits electors residing in Jasper, Alabama and Carbon Hill Alabama to vote for members of the Walker County School Board (the cities being within that county), but the Constitution prohibits residents of Tuscaloosa, Alabama from voting for members of the Tuscaloosa County School Board! This is said to be so even though both of the school boards are within a single state-Alabama; the sole question is whether or not residents of cities or towns within the county having school districts independent of the county district can vote for members of the county district’s school board; and the Constitution to be applied in each case is the same-the Constitution of the United States.
Judicial work cries out for predictability. Law abiding citizens who want to know the law so that they can abide it ought to be able to read our decisions and have reason to believe how the court views given situations. Dedicated and able members of the bar cannot be expected to know how to advise regarding the election of county school board members in the other 65 counties of Alabama. The panel majority’s opinion is an invitation to litigants to bring them all to our court, one at a time, so that successive panels can say who may constitutionally vote for board members of each system.
If Creel be decided incorrectly, it should be put right en banc. Until and unless it is, the judgment in this case should be affirmed.