By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – The federal appeals court, often considered the nation’s most conservative, said Louisiana can end a 32-year-old consent decree meant to ensure a fair chance for Blacks to be elected to the state’s Supreme Court.
In an 11-7 decision on Thursday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said a lower court judge erred in requiring Louisiana to prove it had erased “the vestiges of past discrimination” before ending the so-called Chisom Decree.
Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt said this unexpected burden was “impossible to satisfy,” and it was enough that Louisiana satisfied the eight remedial measures in the 1992 decree, which required a single majority-minority district in Orleans Parish.
One of the dissenting judges, Circuit Judge Jacques Wiener, said the evidence of compliance was not there, and Louisiana also refused to commit to ensuring a majority-minority district after the decree was dissolved.
Engelhardt appeared to acknowledge that concern, saying “courts overseeing consent decrees can rest easy knowing that, once the decree has been satisfied, federal law provides a remedy for any later violation.”