Miller v. Johnson

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Miller v. Johnson

Argued April 20, 1995
Decided June 29, 1995

Full case name:	Zell Miller v. Davida Johnson

Citations:	515 U.S. 900; 115 S. Ct. 2475

Prior history:	On appeal from U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. Together with No. 94-797, Abrams et al. v. Johnson et al., and No. 94-929, United States v. Johnson et al., also on appeal from the same court.

Holding

Court membership

Case opinions

Majority by: Kennedy

Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900 (1995), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning "affirmative gerrymandering/racial gerrymandering", where racial minority majority electoral districts are created during redistricting to increase minority Congressional representation.

The case was brought to court by white voters in the Eleventh Congressional District of the state of Georgia. The irregularly shaped district, which stretched 6,784.2 square miles from Atlanta to the Atlantic Ocean was created to encompass enough of Georgia's African-American population to create a district where an African-American would have a high chance of being elected.

The court ruled against the district, declaring it to be a "geographic monstrosity". It was declared unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, according to the interpretation in Shaw v. Reno (1993).