Brief on Behalf of Amici Curiae the State of Alabama
Public Court Documents
October 15, 1991
20 pages
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Case Files, LULAC and Houston Lawyers Association v. Attorney General of Texas Hardbacks, Briefs, and Trial Transcript. Brief on Behalf of Amici Curiae the State of Alabama, 1991. fddcddac-1c7c-f011-b4cc-6045bdd81421. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/77a01316-79f4-4496-ac9f-34f308586648/brief-on-behalf-of-amici-curiae-the-state-of-alabama. Accessed November 06, 2025.
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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
NO. 90-8014
LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN
CITIZENS COUNCIL NO. 4434,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
and
JESSE OLIVER, et al.,
Intervening
Plaintiff s-Appellees,
versus
WILLIAM P. CLEMENTS, ETC., et al.,
Defendants,
JIM MATTOX, ET AL.,
Defendants-Appellees,
Appellants
versus
JUDGE F. HAROLD ENTZ, ETC.,
JUDGE SHAROLYN WOOD, ETC.,
and GEORGE S. BAYOUD, JR., ETC.,
Defendants-Appellants,
and
TOM RICKHOFF, SUSAN D. REED, JOHN
J. SPECIA, JR., SID L. HARLE, SHARON
MACRAE and MICHAEL P. PEDAN, Bexar
County, Texas State District Judges,
Appellants.
Appeals From the United States District Court
For the Western District of Texas
Brief on Behalf of Amici Curiae the State of Alabama,
the Attorney General, the Chief Justice of the Alabama
Supreme Court, and the Secretary of State
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
NO. 90-8014
LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN
CITIZENS COUNCIL NO. 4434,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
and
JESSE OLIVER, et al.,
Intervening
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
versus
WILLIAM P. CLEMENTS, ETC., et al., :
Defendants,
JIM MATTOX, ET AL.,
Defendants-Appellees,
Appellants
versus
JUDGE F. HAROLD ENTZ, ETC.,
JUDGE SHAROLYN WOOD, ETC.,
and GEORGE S. BAYOUD, JR., ETC.,
Defendants-Appellants,
and
TOM RICKHOFF, SUSAN D. REED, JOHN
J. SPECIA, JR., SID L. HARLE, SHARON
MACRAE and MICHAEL P. PEDAN, Bexar
County, Texas State District Judges,
Appellants.
Appeals From the United States District Court
For the Western District of Texas
Brief on Behalf of Amici Curiae the State of Alabama,
the Attorney General, the Chief Justice of the Alabama
Supreme Court, and the Secretary of State
. TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Minority Interest in Minority Representation . Ce eels ty Nisha ee 1
4
1. State INIETEEIS i. os is vat ts eae erin ne ee ay a We eee a 6
11]. CONCIISION oo oo dis cs 0s 20 3% 5 8 $e winiieceince suse sin uw wo 0 nn 13
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
CASES PAGE
Thornburg v. Gingles,
479 U.S. 30, 45 (1986)
(quoting S. Rep. No. 97-417 at 29 (1882) a a din anniv vn }, 2,5, 8
OTHER AUTHORITIES
The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act
and the Theory of Black Electoral Success,
89 Michigan Law Review 1077, 1093 (March 1991) . ........... 2
Maps and Misreadings: The Role of Geographic Compactness
in Racial Vote Dilution Litigation,
24 Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review 173,
IB LIS) oss aie so sr ans vin ns ee sri ee his a a aie ee 3
~
BRIEF OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA AS AMICUS CURIAE
This Court is well aware that voting rights cases concerning the election of
state judges similar to that which it now considers on remand from the Supreme Court
are currently pending in federal court in Alabama, as well as in several other states.
The decision of the Fifth Circuit in this case will substantially influence the
disposition of these cases. We write, therefore, to supplement the briefs of
defendants with several points that we think bear further emphasis ‘
The Court's questions for counsel, circulated August 6, 1991, suggest that
it is struggling with the question of how to build the proper analytical framework in
which to consider a host of factors -- for example, minority interests, state
interests, racial bloc voting, other traditional Zimmer factors, ete. This brief does
not attempt to respond to those questions or examine possible models for analysis in
a comprehensive way. Rather, Alabama assumes the necessity for some kind of
balancing or totality of the circumstances inquiry in which "'there is no requirement
that any particular number of factors be proved, or that a majority of them point one
way or the other,'" Thornburg v. Gingles, 479 U.S. 30, 45 (1986) (quoting S. Rep.
No. 97-417 at 29 (1982)), and in which "other factors [than those enumerated in the
Senate Report] may also be relevant and may be considered." Thornburg, 478 U.S.
at 45. Alabama submits that in the context of judicial elections, the weight and
relevance given to certain factors in whatever analysis the Court adopts should
differ from that afforded in the traditional Section 2 case in several ways.
1.
Minority Interest in Minority Representation
The Court's first question for counsel implicitly recognizes that assessment
1
of a Section 2 claim necessarily involves some balancing of minority and state
interests which, under varying factual circumstances, may have differing weight
and emphasis. In the judicial context, the minority's interest in equal participation
and influence in the electoral process has been effectively defined -- at least since
the Thornburg decision in 1986 -- as an interest in minority electoral success. See
Thornburg, 478 U.S. at 92-93 (O'Connor, J., concurring) ("Electoral success has
now emerged, under the Court's standard, as the linchpin of vote dilution claims.");
see also Lani Guinier, The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act and the
Theory of Black Electoral Success, 89 Michigan Law Review 1077, 1093 (March 1991)
("Especially since 1986, the courts have measured black political representation and
participation solely by reference to the number and consistent election of black
candidates."). This is perhaps the primary reason that single-member districting
has enjoyed pride of place as a Section 2 remedy: sub-districts guarantee that a
compact and cohesive minority group can elect an officeholder of its own, and the
concomitant sacrifice of influence by that group on other candidacies in other single-
member districts has been thought to be worth the gain in direct representation.
This trade-off of influence must be reexamined in judicial elections because of
structural differences in the offices to be filled. The minority's interest in black
electoral success is logically weakened in this context in two ways. First, no group,
minority or majority, has a strong claim to be represented by its own judges, who -
- as has been exhaustively discussed -- do not speak for and may not "belong to"
particular groups consistently with the definition of their offices. To the extent that
there is a participational value to be served by specifically black electoral success,
it is not the powerful value of interest representation for voters, but the relatively
weaker symbolic or exemplary value for the black community of diversity on the
bench -- sometimes discussed in terms of judges' ability to be "role models" or to
make litigants feel more comfortable or secure. The ier value is not at all a
negligible one, but neither is it one uniquely important to blacks or clearly protected
as a major voting donierh by Section 2. To put this point another way, in the judicial
context, the interest of the minority may be far more closely aligned with that of the
majority -- in this case, every citizen's interest in judicial impartiality, fairness and
independence -- than is so in electoral settings in which the minority has a
distinctive claim to representation of its own unique concerns against those of the
larger group.
Second, the minority's interest in election of its own candidates, as opposed
to the alternative of influence on the broader range of officials in a given
jurisdiction, is weakened by the structure of decision making in the judicial office.
Where black voters can propel black candidates onto collegial bodies such as city
councils or county commissions, they may achieve direct and consistent
representation of their interests in all decisions made by that body and realize the
chance to be central to legislative deliberation and coalition-building on each issue
considered. As one voting rights advocate has put it:
It is critical to this process ... that an advocate of the
distinctive minority perspective be present to advance its
views. In this sense, a strong commitment by a few
persons to address these concerns is preferable to a
weaker commitment by many persons.
Pamela S. Karlan, Maps and Misreadings: The Role of Geographic Compactness in
Racial Vote Dilution Litigation, 24 Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review
173, 218 (1989).
The structure of the office of trial judges, however, forecloses this
opportunity for direct participation by the minority's representatives in all
deliberations and decisions of a governing body. Because judicial decisions are not
made collectively, minority judges will decide only their Wa cases, and no others.
The odds are low that minority voters will appear exclusively -- or even most
frequently -- before minority judges. The interest in black electoral success in this
context is, thus, diminished; such success brings a great deal less in terms of
participation in ultimate decision-making to minorities than would be the case in non-
judicial elections, while influence on the election of non-minority candidates is
concomitantly more important.
There is an additional limitation on black electoral success imposed by the
unique structure of judicial office that may not so much diminish the weight of the
minority interest in such success as alter assessment of that interest's impairment:
qualifications for judicial office. Judges in most states, of course, must be lawyers;
in some states, such as Georgia, lawyers must actually be members of the bar for a
number of years before they qualify for election as judges. See Georgia Const. , Art.
VI, Sec. VII, Par. II(a) (seven year bar membership requirement for superior
judges). In contrast, the legal qualifications for individuals to hold non-judicial
offices typically involve no more than age, residency and citizenship requirements.
When blacks are not represented in the bar in numbers commensurate with their
presence in the general population -- as in Alabama, as well as Texas -- there is
obviously an inherent limitation on the opportunity for black electoral success in
judicial races not present in non-judicial elections. Thus, the degree of the
minority's interest in the election of minority candidates is bounded by the
availability of black lawyers eligible for such offices.
! Alabama is not suggesting that this candidate pool is actually exhausted --
although in some counties this is the case. However, there is no reason to suppose
that all black lawyers -- or more black than white lawyers -- want to be judges or are
viable candidates (absent any racial considerations) for the office of judge. Thus,
the limitation is a real one.
The three ways’ cited above in which the traditional minority interest in black
electoral success is diminished in the judicial context have certain practical
consequences for an assessment of whether the totality of the circumstances
establishes a violation of Section 2 in this case. The Thornburg Court has identified
"the most important Senate Report factors bearing on §2 challenges to multi-member
districts" as "'the extent to which minority group members have been elected to
public office in the jurisdiction' and the 'extent to which voting in the elections of
the ... political subdivision is racially polarized.'" Thornburg, 478 U.S. at48 n. 15
(quoting S. Rep. 28-29). Clearly, proof that blacks are not represented on the
bench in proportion to their numbers in the population carries less weight here than
would similar proof in a non-judicial context. Representation is not a goal of the
judiciary, and the minority interest in black representation is, at best, an
attenuated interest in simple diversity, not the stronger, more traditional claim to
elect office-holders to act as responsive ears and distinctive voices for blacks. This
is particularly true when no collegial decision-making body exists to provide black
judges an opportunity for direct influence over every judicial decision -- where, in
fact, black political influence on white judges, who will likely make the majority of
the decisions allocated to judges in a given jurisdiction, and do so without
consultation, may be much more important to overall black influence and participation
then minority electoral success.
Evidence of black representation on the bench in numbers lower than black
presence in the population is also a great deal less meaningful in the judicial than in
the legislative context. Unless black candidates are -- solely because of their race -
- to be guaranteed by Section 2 an exponentially greater opportunity than whites to
2 The lack of a one-person one-vote requirement in judicial elections also
imposes a limit on the minority interest in equal participation because equally
weighted votes are not required.
serve as elected judges, then the only fair measure of black presence on the bench
is black presence in the pool of qualified candidates for the bench. Accordingly,
proof that for example, in Harris County, Texas, black judges represent 5.1 percent
of the bench, while eligible black lawyers make up only 3.8 percent of the bar, ought
to make a substantial difference in the Court's assessment of black electoral
success.’
Review of the second important Senate factor identified by the Thornburg
Court, racial polarization, should also differ somewhat in the judicial context for
reasons outlined above. Plaintiffs' experts routinely focus exclusively on polarization
in contests in which blacks run against whites. Yet -- uniquely in judicial elections -
- the extent to which minority voters are instrumental in choosing those who will
make most judicial decisions turns on minority influence on the election of majority
candidates absent collegial decision-making. Thus, white support for white
candidates who are also committed to be responsive to the black electorate is highly
relevant information for a federal court charged with assessing the legal significance
of racial bloc voting.
11.
State Interests
While the minority's interest in electing black judges is substantially less than
its interest in electing more black representatives in other contexts, the state
interests in maintaining existing systems for electing judges are particularly strong.
Although these interests are ably discussed in other briefs, some amplification here
3 In Alabama, some 3.3 percent of the in-state bar is black, but 4.6 percent of
elected trial judges are black.
~~
may be helpful. Indispensable to any analysis of a state's interest in perpetuating
its judicial election system is an assessment of the available alternatives. Choices are
not made in the abstract, and any given system -- rather than being perfect -- may
simply be the lesser of two or three evils, or the best balance of a number of
competing interests that appears to be available.
At-large multi-member systems for electing trial judges reflect such a balance.
The alternatives -- single-member subdistricts, or novel systems such as cumulative
or limited voting -- do perhaps offer to enhance diversity on the bench by adding
more minority judges. We note, however, that this is all those systems offer to the
judiciary. Whereas single-member districts, and even semi-proportional systems like
cumulative or limited voting, have been advocated -- and sometimes employed -- as
viable alternatives commanding popular support for use in city council or legislative
elections, these have never been employed (outside the context of a lawsuit, as in
Mississippi) to elect judges. Independently of these latter day vote dilution cases,
there is no constituency or track record whatsoever for use of such systems in the
judicial context -- and with good reason.
The choice to elect trial judges offers an important measure of acccuntability
and legitimacy to a state judiciary. But a principal evil of such a choice is the threat
of politicization of the judicial function -- the possibility of a constituency-based
system of justice, or the appearance thereof, in which judges are pressured to play
to the gallery for votes, and to sacrifice fairness and impartiality to the demands of
the interests that put them, and keep them, in power. Elections also threaten to
erode the competence and quality of the judiciary; a good lawyer is unlikely to leave
an established practice for a judgeship where elections are always, and often,
contested and single-issue politics may easily prevail.
A state obviously has a compelling interest in checking and curbing these less
wholesome tendencies of electoral systems. Its tools include such things as provision
for longer than average terms for judges, strict canons of judicial conduct,
attractive retirement plans -- and, not least, election systems that themselves
reduce politicization and promote the retention of competent judges. At-large
elections, for example, mitigate strongly against the tendency of popular vote to
promote judicial bias and partiality, or pressures towards those ends, by offering
a judge the buffer of a broad electoral base and enabling him or her to withstand,
insofar as possible, the pressures of public opinion -- in short, to act with courage
and integrity. The minority interest in a system of this kind is itself extremely
strong in the judicial context; it is often the powerless and the unpopular that are
protected by judicial independence.
Single-member districts, in contrast, bring judges uncomfortably close to the
electorate. In Alabama, for example, if Jefferson County (Birmingham) were divided
into 24 single-member subdistricts, one for each circuit judge, the number of
electors entitled to vote for each judge would decrease from 488,937 (measured by
voting age population) to 20,372 per judge. In such a situation, there is simply, as
one Alabama judge has put it, no "shock absorber" to aid a judge in "surviving
difficult decisions in controversial cases." A judge who "values his or her career on
the bench, or who is approaching the last election necessary to accumulate vested
retirement benefits, would be foolish indeed not to be aware of (and possibly bend
to) the views of vocal, influential, or powerful interest groups in his or her district
when deciding cases."
Although single-member districts can compromise the appearance (and reality)
of an independent judiciary, they do offer one considerable advantage: incumbent
judges are not all compelled to run against each other in every election. Within any
given district, the incumbent faces a contest only from new challengers, not from his
8: pr
a
-
or her colleagues oh the bench, and seats may not always be contested. Where, as
in judicial elections, single-member districts are an undesirable alternative,
numbered places in at-large elections also offer the same advantage.
The primary reason for providing a measure of protection to incumbents from
inevitably contested elections is the state's strong interest in judicial competence.
Unlike legislators, county commissioners, school board members, and many city
officials, judges serve full-time; their jobs are their careers (an arrangement that,
itself, serves the state's independence and competence interests). A career marked
by the threat of perpetual instability, with contested elections guaranteed every six
years, is hardly an attractive one to the best candidates, who typically can rely
on the expectation of greater longevity as well as greater remuneration in private
law practice.
The state's interest in judicial competence is served in at least two other ways
by numbered places. In situations in which an incompetent judge clearly needs to be
removed, it is difficult for the electors to target only that judge for defeat in a pure
at-large system. Since all the judges must run against each other at the same time,
all judges are in jeopardy of defeat where perhaps only one seat would otherwise
have attracted a contest. Further, because contested elections would require judges
to campaign particularly against their colleagues, the collegiality of the bench may
be diminished, and judges encouraged to "keep book" on one another. Good
candidates might again find standing for election less than attractive.
Numbered places in at-large elections can also enhance the independence of
judges, who must be specifically targeted, challenged one-on-one, and voted out by
a substantial segment of voters to be reliably unseated in such a system. This may
make sweeps of elections, or wholesale turnover, less likely, and arguably reduces
the need for judges to play politics. The assurance that not every election will
Vere
inevitably be contested also reduces candidates' needs for campaign funds and,
again, offers judges additional insulation from politics. *
Limited and cumulative voting systems are no better than single-member
districts. Indeed, they preserve the disadvantages of such systems without realizing
the advantages of at-large numbered place elections. In a limited vote system the
voter must cast fewer votes than the number of seats to be filled. The form of limited
vote most often advocated by voting rights plaintiffs is the single non-transferrable
vote system (SNTV), in which voters are given only one vote. In an SNTV system
the threshold of exclusion’ (that is, the level of support for a candidate at which
a given group cannot be denied a seat) is lower than that in a comparable at-large,
numbered-place election system -- hence, the appeal for minority voters.
In a cumulative vote system, a voter typically has any votes as there are
seats to fill but he or she can cumulate or aggregate those votes among a smaller
number of candidates, giving a preferred candidate more than one vote. Like limited
voting, cumulative voting reduces the threshold of exclusion, enhancing the ability
of a cohesive minority group to elect a candidate. The threshold of exclusion in such
a system is the same as that for an SNTV system. ®
¢ Such insulation is particularly important in judicial races, which do not always
generate broad public interest and tend to be financed by lawyers and frequent
litigators -- who perhaps offer the greatest potential threat to judicial independence
or the appearance thereof.
5 The formula for calculating the threshold of exclusion is:
Number of votes each voter can cast
Number of votes each voter can cast plus number of seats to be filled.
¢® The formula is:
1
1+ number of seats to be filled.
10
From the standpoint of the judiciary, the problems with the SNTV or
cumulative voting systems are substantial. First, these systems retain the chief
disadvantage of the single-member district system by ensuring that a judge's
election may be determined by a very small proportion of the population. For
example, in the Tenth Circuit in Alabama, any cohesive group that can marshall
19,557 votes, or roughly four percent of the total voting age population, is assured
a seat. Of course, even a lower number of votes may elect a judge; the threshold of
exclusion represents the level of support at which a group is guaranteed a seat.
Once again, judicial independence -- or the appearance thereof -- may be
compromised by the fact that this system rewards efforts to attract votes from small,
identifiable, cohesive groups that may, for example, coalesce around single
ideological issues. The need for judicial candidates to appeal broadly to a full range
of voters, and the relative political insulation that broad support provides, is
consequently diminished.
Not only is the state's interest in an independent, unbiased judiciary
compromised in such systems, but its interest in the legitimacy and authcrity of the
judicial office is adversely affected by public perception that very small groups of
voters are propelling judges into office. It is bad enough for a litigant to know that
he or she will appear before a neighborhood (perhaps not their neighborhood) judge,
as in a single-member district system. It is eminently worse for that litigant to be
aware that his or her case will be heard by the trial lawyers' judge, the NEA's judge,
the chamber of commerce's judge, the Eagle Forum's judge, or the ACLU's judge.
At the same time that limited and cumulative vote preserve, and arguably
enhance, this disadvantage of the single-member district system, they fail to realize
its chief advantage (and the advantage of numbered-places) for judges: the
assurance that elections are not inevitably contested. Incumbents have virtually no
11
Ne
protection in these systems. Not only must all the judges run against each other at
each election, but the number of votes required to unseat a judge, and end a career,
is substantially diminished. The incentive for a good candidate to leave private
practice for the bench is considerably undermined,
We note also that the advantages of these systems for racial minorities are not
absolutely clear. These systems require a great deal of cohesion, and highly
strategic voting, to operate properly; a minority group that concentrates its votes,
but still falls below the threshold of exclusion, may end up with no direct
representation at all, and no influence on other candidates whom it did not help elect
-- again, a particular problem where voters are not electing representatives to a
collegial body. There is considerable doubt as to how much these sorts of systems
help their intended beneficiaries.
II.
Conclusion
Alternatives to the present system of electing judges at-large from numbered
places impose unacceptable burdens on compelling state interests in the
independence and competence of the state judiciary. The balance among these
interests that the states have presently struck is crielal to the effective functioning
of the trial bench. Given the minority's diminished interest in electing its own
representatives in the judicial context, the scales should tip in the Court's analysis
toward a finding of no Section 2 violation as a matter of law in the instant case.
12
Respectfully submitted,
NSom~ S. Ln
SUSAN E. RUSS /
Special Assistant Attorney General
MILLER, HAMILTON, SNIDER & ODOM
One Commerce Street
Suite 802
Montgomery, Alabama 36104
(205) 834-5550
Yovid Eo Bud / sse
DAVID R. BOYD
Special Assistant Attorney General
(Counsel of Record)
BALCH & BINGHAM
Post Office Box 78
Montgomery, Alabama 36101
(205) 834-6500
Ervwwionr 4. Gale, IC [Sc
FOURNIER J. GALE, III
Special Assistant Attorney General
MAYNARD, COOPER, FRIERSON & GALE
2400 AmSouth Tower - Harbert Plaza
1901 6th Avenue, North
Birmingham, Alabama 36101
(205) 252-2889
13
Walktr -S- Tone [ser
WALTER S. TURNER
RONALD C. FOREHAND
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
11 South Union Street, Room 303
Montgomery, Alabama 36130
(205) 242-7300
14
CERTIFICATE
I HEREBY CERTIFY that a copy of the foregoing has been served upon the
following: Jim Mattox, Attorney General of Texas, Mary F. Keller, First Assistant
Attorney General, Renea Hicks, Special Assistant Attorney General, and Javier
Juajardo, Assistant Attorney General, P.O. Box 12548, Capitol Station, Austin,
Texas 78711-2548; William L. Garrett, Garrett, Thompson & Chang, 8300 Douglas,
Suite 800, Dallas, Texas 75225; Rolando Rios, Southwest Voter Registration &
Education Project, 201 N. St. Mary's, Suite 521, San Antonio, Texas 78205;
Sherrilyn A. Ifill, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 99 Hudson
Street, 16th Floor, New York, New York 10013; Gabrielle K. McDonald, 301 Congress
Avenue, Suite 2050, Austin, Texas 78701; Edward B. Cloutmann, III, Mullinax,
Wells, Baab & Cloutman, P.C., 3301 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas 75226-1637; J. Eugene
Clements, Porter & Clements, 700 Louisiana, Suite 3500, Houston, Texas 77002-2730;
Robert H. Mow, Jr., Hughes & Luce, 2800 Momentum Place, 1717 Main Street, Dallas,
Texas 75201; John L. Hill, Jr., Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon, 3300 Texas
Commerce Tower, Houston, Texas 77002; Walter L. Irvin, 5787 South Hampton Road,
Suite 210, Lock Box 122, Dallas, Texas 75232-2255; R. James George, Jr., Graves,
Dougherty, Hearon & Moody, P.O. Box 98, Austin, Texas 78767; Seagal V.
Wheatley, Oppenheimer, Rosenberg, Kelleher & Whatley, Inc., 711 Navarro, Sixth
Floor, San Antonio, Texas 78205; and John R. Dunne, Assistant Attorney General,
Jessica Dunsay Silver, Mark L. Gross and Susan D. Carle, Attorneys, Department
of Justice, P.O. Box 66078, Washington, D.C. 20035-6078, by depositing the same
in the United States Mail, postage prepaid, properly addressed.
All parties required to be served have been served.
Montgomery County, Alabama, this the |S day of
Oth bev , 1991.
OF COUNSEL
15