532 U.S. 234 (2001)
North Carolina's legislature drew a new version of the Twelfth Congressional District in 1992 that contained a majority of African-American voters.1 After the Supreme Court held the 1992 boundaries unconstitutional in Shaw v. Hunt, the State redrew the district lines in 1997.2
A three-judge District Court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs challenging the new boundaries.3
The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for trial because genuine issues of material fact existed concerning whether the evidence supported a race-based or a political objective of creating a safe Democratic seat.4
On remand the parties conducted additional discovery and the District Court held a three-day trial.5 The court found that the legislature had sought to cure the prior constitutional defects while maintaining the existing partisan balance in the State's congressional delegation, avoiding placement of two incumbents in the same district, and preserving the partisan core of existing districts.6 It further found as a matter of fact that the General Assembly used criteria that were facially race driven when it drew the 1997 boundaries.7
The District Court rested its conclusion in part on the district's snakelike shape, the splitting of cities and towns, and its 47 percent African-American voting population.8 It also relied on a new subsidiary finding that the legislature had drawn the boundaries to collect precincts with high racial identification rather than political identification.9 That finding rested on five specific determinations: exclusion of heavily Democratic precincts in favor of precincts with higher African-American populations, expert testimony from Dr. Weber that race trumped party affiliation, rejection of Dr. Peterson's testimony as unreliable, Senator Roy Cooper's reference to a need for racial and partisan balance, and an e-mail from legislative staff member Gerry Cohen stating that he had moved the Greensboro Black community into the Twelfth District and now needed to remove about 60,000 people.10
The State and intervenors appealed directly to the Supreme Court under 28 U.S.C. §1253.11 The Court noted probable jurisdiction and heard argument on November 27, 2000.12 The key evidence at trial consisted primarily of documents, expert testimony, and statistical data comparing registration figures with actual voting behavior in North Carolina precincts.13
Whether the three-judge District Court clearly erred in finding that race rather than politics predominantly motivated the North Carolina legislature when it drew the 1997 boundaries for Congressional District 12?14
The Supreme Court reviews a district court's factual findings in racial gerrymandering cases for clear error.15 The reviewing court asks whether on the entire evidence it is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.16 Plaintiffs bear the demanding burden of showing that race was the predominant factor in the legislature's districting decision.17 This means the legislature subordinated traditional race-neutral districting principles to racial considerations.18 The districting must be unexplainable on grounds other than race.19 Courts must exercise extraordinary caution in adjudicating such claims, particularly where the State has articulated a legitimate political explanation and race correlates highly with political affiliation.20
Yes. The District Court clearly erred in finding that race rather than politics predominantly motivated the North Carolina legislature when it drew the 1997 boundaries for Congressional District 12.21 Its determination rested upon the district's shape, the splitting of towns and counties, and its heavily African-American voting population.22 These findings the Supreme Court had already deemed insufficient to support summary judgment.
The court further relied on evidence of voting registration rather than actual voting behavior.23 The Supreme Court had previously found such evidence inadequate because white registered Democrats cross over to vote Republican more often than African-Americans, who register and vote Democratic between 95 and 97 percent of the time.24
Dr. Weber's testimony that a reliably Democratic population of 60 percent suffices for a safe seat and that race trumped party affiliation offered little additional support.25 District 12 exceeded the 60 percent threshold by only 3 percent, and other unchallenged districts showed similar margins.26
The District Court rejected Dr. Peterson's testimony as unreliable without undermining his data showing that African-American Democratic voters were more reliably Democratic and that the boundaries were drawn to include reliable Democrats.27 Senator Cooper's reference to racial and partisan balance and the Cohen e-mail mentioning the Greensboro Black community demonstrate that the legislature considered race.28 They do not establish that racial considerations predominated over the legitimate political objective of creating a safe Democratic seat.29
Appellees failed to demonstrate that the legislature could have achieved its political objectives through alternative plans that were comparably consistent with traditional districting principles and that would have produced significantly greater racial balance.30
The District Court's conclusion that the State violated the Equal Protection Clause in drawing the 1997 boundaries is based on clearly erroneous findings, and the judgment of the District Court is reversed.31
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Scalia, And Justice Kennedy
Justice Thomas dissented on the ground that the District Court's factual finding of racial predominance was not clearly erroneous.32 He maintained that the majority improperly conducted an extensive review instead of applying the deferential clear error standard.33 Thomas noted that the absence of an intermediate court, the short trial length, and the documentary nature of the evidence do not justify departing from ordinary deference to the factfinder.34
Thomas pointed to objective measures of the district's lack of compactness, Dr. Weber's analysis of performance data showing that race trumped party affiliation, the District Court's permissible decision to discredit Dr. Peterson's testimony, and the Cohen e-mail as direct evidence that the drafter targeted voters on the basis of race.35 He concluded that the District Court was entitled to find racial predominance even if the record permitted another view, because the e-mail combined with circumstantial evidence provided ample support under clear error review.36