In Ellis et al. v. Dyson et al., the U.S Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over whether Maryland's system of electing circuit court judges violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it diluted black voting strength. The plaintiffs, who were residents and registered voters in Baltimore City, argued that while they made up 28% of Maryland’s population, they only had influence over selecting 14% of its circuit court judges due to an electoral scheme where some jurisdictions elected more than one judge at large. They contended this was discriminatory as it prevented them from having proportional representation on the bench. The Supreme Court disagreed and upheld Maryland's judicial election system. It ruled that there was no constitutional requirement for state judicial systems to be structured so as to reflect proportionately every significant identifiable group within their jurisdictional boundaries in terms of race or color; rather states have broad discretion in structuring their own judiciary systems provided they do not infringe upon basic constitutional protections.

In the dissenting opinion for Ellis et al. v. Dyson et al., Justice Douglas argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Maryland statute requiring nonresidents to pay higher court fees than residents was unconstitutional. He contended that this law violated both the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, which guarantees citizens in each state equal privileges and immunities as those enjoyed by citizens in other states, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from denying any person within their jurisdiction equal protection under law. Douglas asserted that these clauses were designed to prevent discrimination against out-of-state individuals based on their residency status alone - something he believed Maryland's fee structure did explicitly. Furthermore, he rejected arguments justifying differential treatment on grounds such as increased administrative costs or benefits provided exclusively to residents; instead asserting these reasons were insufficiently compelling to override constitutional protections against discriminatory practices.