Smith v. Winter’s Empirical Analysis
717 F.2d 191 · 1983
Citation profile
11 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently May 2018
11 federal appellate ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1441 · 28 U.S.C. § 1443 · 28 U.S.C. § 1447 · 42 U.S.C. § 1973 (§ 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965) · 42 U.S.C. § 1973C (§ 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on City of Mobile v. Bolden · White v. Regester · Georgia v. Rachel · City of Greenwood v. Peacock · Rogers v. Lodge
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“To adopt the plaintiffs’ view of the right to vote poses unruly problems. For instance, how may we ever know whose effected right to vote any particular candidate embodies, so that we may know whose “vote effectiveness” is sought to be maintained? Given the sanctity of the secret ballot process in our Republic, individual votes cannot be traced from minority members’ ballots into the public office. Not even postulates on which racial bloc voting calculations are based assume that all minority support was given to one public official, or provide anything more than a general measure of the degree to which that support is dispersed among public officials. Certainly they do not seek to establish that a particular public official is accountable to minority interests for any precise portion of his or her total political powers. It is as reasonable to assume that every elected official embodies the vote of at least some minority member. If we followed the plaintiffs’ view of the right to vote to its logical conclusion, every elected public official, whether a minority member or not, could seek removal to federal court of any state [removal] proceeding merely by alleging that the voting rights of an electorate containing at least one minority member were being discriminatorily abridged. Other absurd results are equally possible. For instance, if minority members vote for a candidate on the basis of a campaign promise and the candidate later breaches that promise with discriminatory e”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Kuhn v. Thompson“Both parties apparently labor under the impression that 28 U.S.C. § 1443 supplies removal jurisdiction in this ease. Although neither party addresses § 1443, it is always the duty of federal courts to review whether or not jurisdiction exists.... Despite the “rather generally framed conditions for removal” provided in § 1443, removal pursuant to this statute has been narrowly construed. The Supreme Court has held that the phrase “any law providing for equal civil rights” must be construed to mean any law providing for specific civil rights stated in terms of racial equality. Likewise, the Supreme Court acknowledged that when the removal statute speaks of “any law providing for equal rights,” it refers to “ ‘those laws that are couched in terms of equality such as the historic and the recent equal rights statutes, as distinguished from laws, of which the due process clause and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 are sufficient examples, that confer equal rights' in the sense, vital to our way of life, of bestowing them upon all.’ ” In this ease, Defendant Florida Parish has attempted to use § 1443(2) as a vehicle to remove from state to federal court a § 1983/state tort law action concerning the alleged sexual abuse of Plaintiff Christopher Rowe [by the warden of a juvenile facility]. None of the claims asserted in this action constitute claims concerning racial equality. Therefore, removal under § 1443 was improper.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Any of the following civil actions or criminal prosecutions, commenced in a State court may be removed by the defendant to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place wherein it is pending: (1) Against any person who is denied or cannot enforce in the courts of such State a right under any law providing for the equal civil rights of citizens of the United States, or of all persons within the jurisdiction thereof; (2) For any act under color of authority derived from any law providing for equal rights, or for refusing to do any act on the grounds that it would be inconsistent with such law.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.