Cheston J. Roberts v. State of Indiana

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted July 21, 2026
Decided August 17, 2026
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 24-1966
CHESTON J. ROBERTS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
STATE OF INDIANA, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of
Indiana, Indianapolis Division.
No. 1:23-cv-00828-JRS-KMB
James R. Sweeney II,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Marion County is one of three counties in Indiana (along with St. Joseph County
and Lake County) in which the governor appoints judges to serve on the superior court,
subject to retention elections—a method of judicial selection referred to as the “Missouri
Plan.” Relying on demographic data, Cheston Roberts alleged that the selective
implementation of the Missouri Plan in only these three counties violated § 2 of the
Voting Rights Act and the Constitution. The district judge dismissed Roberts’s amended
complaint for failure to state a claim, reasoning that the Act did not require any public
officer to be elected, rather than appointed, under Quinn v. Illinois, 887 F.3d 322, 323–24
(7th Cir. 2018), and that Roberts had failed to develop his other constitutional theories.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 24-1966 Page 2
The judge offered Roberts another opportunity to amend his complaint “to allege new
facts tending to show actual discriminatory intent,” but Roberts did not do so and
promptly appealed.
Shortly after the appeal was docketed, Roberts agreed to suspend briefing
pending the outcome of a materially identical challenge to Lake County’s
implementation of the Missouri Plan in City of Hammond v. Lake County Board of
Elections, 179 F.4th 1100 (7th Cir. 2026). In City of Hammond, we found no reason to
address the holding of Quinn, because the Supreme Court had recently established that
evidence of disparate impact was insufficient for liability under § 2 of the Voting Rights
Act. Id. at 1108 (citing Louisiana v. Callais, 146 S. Ct. 1131, 1156 (2026)). The plaintiffs had
provided no evidence that the decision to implement the Missouri Plan was the product
of intentional racial discrimination, and so they could not succeed on their claims. Id. at
1108–09. In light of this holding, the state now seeks summary affirmance in Roberts’s
appeal, and Roberts opposes that request.
We agree with the state that our decision in City of Hammond controls here.
Roberts’s amended complaint presented only a disparate-impact theory that is
foreclosed by Callais. The district judge expressly noted that Roberts had not made
“even bare allegations of racially discriminatory intent.” Although Roberts now insists
that he can trace the appointment of judges in Marion County to the discriminatory
influence of the Ku Klux Klan in 1925, he only alluded to this history in passing before
the district court. He did not take the judge’s offer to further amend his complaint to
allege intentional discrimination. Arguments that were not raised in the district court,
or that were raised but “underdeveloped, conclusory, or unsupported by law” are
waived on appeal. Puffer v. Allstate Ins. Co., 675 F.3d 709, 718 (7th Cir. 2012). The district
judge likewise recognized that although Roberts sought to raise a First Amendment
theory to challenge the partisan balancing of judges on the superior court, he had not
developed the theory in any detail and so it was waived.
Because Roberts preserved only his disparate-impact claim under § 2 of the
Voting Rights Act, and that claim is now foreclosed by our decision in City of Hammond,
we SUMMARILY AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

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