Mississippians Ask SCOTUS To Hear Felony Voter Disenfranchisement Case
A group of disenfranchised Mississippians are asking the nation’s highest court to determine whether the state’s lifetime ban on voting for individuals with certain felony convictions violates the U.S. Constitution.
Last week, attorneys for the plaintiffs filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. The petition asks the high court to review the question of whether the state’s felony disenfranchisement policy violates the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.”
Under Section 241 of the state Constitution, Mississippians who were convicted of a crime on the state’s list of disenfranchising offenses — and who haven’t completed the voting restoration process — are not eligible to vote. Section 241 was enshrined in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution with the express purpose of denying Black men the right to vote. Roughly 9% of residents are disenfranchised, according to progressive advocacy group MS Votes.
“Mississippi’s harsh and unforgiving felony disenfranchisement scheme is a national outlier,” the petition says. “Today, Mississippi is one of only two states
that continues to punish first-time offenders who commit non-violent and non-voting-related felonies with lifetime disenfranchisement.”
In 2018, a group of disenfranchised voters filed a class action lawsuit against Mississippi’s Republican secretary of state over the ban. The following year, a federal district court rejected the merits of their constitutional arguments against Section 241 and a similar provision — 253 — they were also challenging that concerned the voting restoration process.
The plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court. A three-judge panel struck down Section 241 last year for violating the 8th Amendment. The state then asked the entire 5th Circuit to rehear the case and void the three-judge panel’s opinion which the court did in January.
During oral argument in January, an attorney for Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) defended the policy, stating that what the state’s “traditions recognize in disenfranchising felons for so long is that there are certain features of character and judgment that felons…are potentially incapable of” possessing.
The court upheld the voting ban in July. In the opinion, the dissenting judges noted that “Mississippi is one of only eleven states that still permanently disenfranchise felons for offenses other than those pertaining to elections.”
“Even more staggering,” they wrote, “Mississippi is one of only two states that permanently disenfranchise firsttime offenders who have completed their sentences and who were convicted of non-violent and non-voting-related felonies.”
Now, the plaintiffs are asking the high court to weigh in. The Supreme Court has the discretion to accept or deny the petition.