CASE BRIEF

A case brief should be 1-2 pages. (250-500 words) The brief for each case should be submitted before the date on the work schedule. Be prepared to discuss your brief in class.

Facts: Summarize the facts of the case. List only the essential facts that you need to understand the holding and reasoning of the case.

Procedure: Most of the cases that you'll read in law school will be appellate court decisions. In this section, you want to list what happened in the lower court(s). Do not go into too much detail. One or two sentences are sufficient for this section.

Issue(s): What is/are the question(s) facing the court? Form the issue questions in a way that they can be answered by yes or no.

Holding: How did the court answer the issue question(s)? YES/NO?

Reasoning: This is the most important section of your case brief. Here you want to list the reasoning of the majority in reaching its decision. You can actually be quite detailed in this section. List what the law was before this case was decided and how the law has changed after this decision. Law professors love to discuss the reasoning of a case in class discussions.

Concurring/dissenting opinions: Even though I read the concurring and dissenting opinions, I rarely brief them. However, there are some cases (e.g. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer) where the concurring or dissenting opinions end up becoming more important than the majority's opinions. In such cases, you should add this section to your case brief.

Chapter 8 - Chisom v. Roemer and Diversity and the Bench

The text book's discussion of Chisom v. Roemer and Diversity on the Bench is quite a complex discussion. The case Chisom v. Roemer was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. This case dealt with the voting rights that are expressed and protected by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution and by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the subsquential amendments that were added in 1982.

The case originated from a lawsuit filed by Janice Clark in the Middle District of Louisiana. Clark was a black candidate for a judgeship in Louisianna. Her lawsuit was a class action lawsuit filed on the behalf of black voters and black lawyers who qualified to be judges in Louisianna. At the heart of their argument was the idea that the judicial districts in Louisianna were established in such a way that diluted the votes of blacks. They stressed the fact that only 2 out of 156 judgeships were black. They argued that according to the voting rights act of 1965 this was a violation of law. The court ruling supported the idea that these district lines cannot be drawn in such a way that would dilute minority voting. Once the lines were redrawn Clark was elected as a major trial court bench in Baton Rouge.

This in itself seems simple enough. In the courts written opinion, they made the case that the language in the Voting Rights Act which stated: "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" and "members of a protected class:'have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.'" was essential in finding in favor of Janice Clark and similar plaintiffs. The court spent considerable time arguing that the term "representative" referred to judges as well as normal elected representatives. Considerable energy was spent establishing the idea that the actions of a body to dilute or deny one's rights as a voter need not be intentional but rather the result of a particular set of actions.

At first glance, this seems harmless enough. It wasn't until I read the court's dissenting opinion that I begin to think twice about the court's decision opinion. The Chief Justice along with justices Kennedy and Sclalia were the dissenting judges. Their dissent was based almost exclusively on the majority's process of interpretting the original intent of the Voting Rights Act. Based on the dissenter's arguements the majority used unfounded methods to establish the meaning of the word representative. They argued that the majority manipulated the original meaning of the Voting Rights Act to support their actions to attack discrimination in the voting process. Although this seems like a noble cause, it is extremely dangerous for the Supreme Court to "twist" the law to fit its own intents. This is known as legislating from the bench.

The whole role of judges is at question in this case. The idea of judges being elected or chosen at large. Though the dissenters alleged that judges were not included in the term representatives because of their role as impartial judges who are not suppose to be tied to public opinion, it would seem that this opinion is mute when judges are making law from the bench as opposed to ruling according to established law.