5th Circuit Upholds Miss. Jim-Crow Era Lifetime Voting Ban for Some Individuals Post-Sentence
Today, the nation’s most conservative appeals court upheld Mississippi’s lifetime ban on voting for individuals with certain felony convictions even after sentence completion, essentially ruling that state lawmakers have the authority to change the law, not the judiciary.
The decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means that Mississippians who were convicted of a crime on the state’s list of disenfranchising offenses and who have not undergone its voting restoration process will not be able to vote in this fall’s election. Roughly 9% of residents are disenfranchised, according to progressive advocacy group MS Votes.
In its opinion, 13 of the panel’s 19 judges ruled that holding Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution as unconstitutional would “thwart” the ability of the state Legislature and citizens “to determine their voting qualifications.”
The opinion admonishes the plaintiffs to “do the hard work of persuading your fellow citizens that the law should change.”
The dissenting judges noted in the opinion that “Mississippi is one of only eleven states that still permanently disenfranchise felons for offenses other than those pertaining to elections.”
“Even more staggering, 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.”
The ruling comes after a three-judge panel on the same court struck down Section 241 last year for violating the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
In that August 2023 decision, the panel rejected a separate request from the plaintiffs to strike down another state constitutional provision — Section 253 — establishing the state’s onerous and arbitrary method for individuals to get their voting rights restored. After the initial ruling, the state asked the entire 5th Circuit to rehear the case and void the three-judge panel’s opinion, which the court did in January.
Under Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution, individuals convicted of certain felony offenses — such as murder, theft and arson — lose their right to vote for life. In 2018, a group of disenfranchised voters filed a class action lawsuit against Mississippi’s Republican secretary of state. The voters argue that the constitution’s suffrage bill provision “establishes no objective criteria for the restoration of voting rights.”
“Instead, Mississippi legislators have complete discretion to determine whether or not to allow a disenfranchised citizen to vote again,” the voters assert, noting that in the last five years (since they filed their lawsuit), only 14 Mississippians have successfully gotten their voting rights restored.
The disenfranchised voters allege that Section 241 of the state constitution — the provision that disqualifies people with certain offenses from voting — violates the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and that Section 253 — which lays out the legislative process for voting restoration — violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Both the complaint and critics have noted that the provisions came about during the Jim Crow era. Section 241 was enshrined in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution with the express purpose of denying Black men the right to vote.
During oral argument in January, an attorney for Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) said 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.
One of the 5th Circuit judges suggested that the court isn’t the appropriate entity to weigh in, the Associated Press reported. “There is no judicial calculus to tell the difference between a rapist, and an armed robber and a car thief — and a timber thief, for that matter,” Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee, said.
The state constitution allows the Legislature to restore the right to vote to an individual disqualified because of a crime, but requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers. The governor can sign the bill, return it to the Legislature with objections, veto it or leave it unsigned. If the governor hasn’t returned or taken action within five days after receiving the bill, it becomes law.
The state’s process for voting restoration was on full display in May, when Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law two bills that restored voting rights to two individuals, and vetoed bills that restored voting rights to four other people, records show. Additionally, proposals for 14 people became law without Reeves’ signature.
Reeves offered no explanation for the vetoes, records show, nor did his office respond to a request for comment from Democracy Docket.
But voting rights advocates have long decried the process as arbitrary and needlessly complicated. One lawmaker who opposes the provision and who sponsored individuals seeking to have their rights restored told Democracy Docket he was unsure of why his proposals were approved and others weren’t.