directly disagreed with the District Court's finding that Shaw had used rational considerations in decisions about infrastructure. For example, in the case of street paving, which had been provided for nearly all white residents, but not for many black residents: The record simply does not support the justification that streets were built according to traffic needs and usage. The town's one engineer who made recommendations to defendants as to the priority of street paving projects testified that he had never surveyed the town to determine which streets were used the most. Nor did he compare the usage of streets in black neighborhoods with the usage of those in white neighborhoods. He even admitted that he was not familiar with the usage of streets in the Promised Land Addition, which is one of the oldest and largest black neighborhoods in Shaw. The court declined to compel Shaw to take any specific action, instead ordering it to submit a planned "program of improvements that will, within a reasonable time, remove the disparities that bear so heavily on the black citizens of Shaw." To justify judicial intervention into a typically legislative affair, the majority decision invoked the doctrine of "checks and balances" as part of a working system of separation of powers, stating that flagrantly unconstitutional inequality requires a check from the courts. In a concurring opinion, judge Griffin Bell invoked the case of Hadnott v. City of Prattville, 309 F. Supp. 967 (M.D. Ala. 1970) and commented on improvements in service distribution accompanying voting rights. The panel's decision was subsequently confirmed on 27 March 1972 by an en banc session of the same court. The dissenting judges (Charles Clark and Paul Hitch Roney) condemned the decision in strong terms, stating that the court had been too ready to agree prima facie that Shaw had discriminated racially, and comparing Shaw with desegregated municipalities which still had unequal services. Outcomes Contemporary observers took notice of Hawkins v. Town of Shaw for defining a new level of involvement for courts in municipal affairs. It was the most prominent in a series of cases which had increased the scope of 42 USC § 1983 in actions against local governments. The decision left open the issue of unequal provision of services according to wealth and for this reason some commentators doubted its wide applicability. The 1976 Supreme Court case Washington v. Davis limited the principle of Hawkins