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Home News Mississippi’s Felon Disenfranchisement Law Stays In Place After Supreme Court Decision

Mississippi’s Felon Disenfranchisement Law Stays In Place After Supreme Court Decision

by Celia

The Supreme Court on Monday decided to leave in place Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era law that removes voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes like forgery and timber theft. The justices, without comment, rejected an appeal from Mississippi residents who have completed their sentences but are still unable to regain their right to vote.

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The court’s decision upheld a ruling by the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which stated that the permanent loss of voting rights does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution. The appeals court ruled that Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws.

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In 2023, lawyers tried to get the Supreme Court to review the issue of felon disenfranchisement, but they failed. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, arguing that Mississippi’s list of disqualifying crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose.”

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No justice dissented from Monday’s order. Most people affected by the law are disenfranchised for life because the state provides few options for restoring voting rights. Lawyers who brought the case argued that Mississippi is an outlier and that its voting ban is a vestige of segregation.

The state’s 1890 constitution was designed to disenfranchise Black people by focusing on crimes they were more likely to commit, the lawyers argued. However, the state countered that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that states can deny voting rights to people convicted of felonies.

About 38% of Mississippi residents are Black. Between 1994 and 2017, nearly 50,000 people were disenfranchised under the state’s felony voting ban. More than 29,000 of them have completed their sentences, and about 58% of that group are Black, according to data analyzed for the plaintiffs.

To regain voting rights in Mississippi, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. In recent years, legislators have restored voting rights for only a few people.

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