Supreme Court Declines Appeal of Mississippi Law Banning Certain Convicted Felons from Voting

The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to Mississippi’s law that permanently strips voting rights from citizens convicted of certain felonies.

Reuters reported that a lower court has already rejected a lawsuit claiming that the law violates the Constitution.

In 2018, six men in Mississippi filed a class action lawsuit after they were barred from voting after serving their sentences.

The lawsuit alleged that the 1890 provision was a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

The Mississippi Constitution stipulates that the voting ban is for serious crimes ranging from rape and murder to bribery, forgery, arson, and theft.

Still, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that it caught too many minor crimes, such as “writing a bad check for $100 or stealing $250 worth of timber.”

Many news outlets have pointed out that the law suffers from original sin since it was enacted during the Jim Crow era in 1890.

However, it’s clear it has nothing to do with race in modern times as the plaintiffs, convicted of receiving stolen property and grand larceny, were black and white.

Critics argue that the rule is rooted in the post-Civil War racism of the Jim Crow South.

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During the reconstruction period, blacks were freed from slavery but still faced oppressive race-based laws, whether overtly or disguised underneath other provisions.

Mississippi adopted Section 241 to its constitution specifically to disenfranchise black voters.

Court filings note that it intentionally removed crimes considered “white crimes” while those considered at the time to be “black crimes” were added to the provision.

Those who object to the law point to the disparity in the makeup of those who have been disenfranchised.

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In Mississippi, black voters comprise 58% of the people barred from casting ballots, while they make up only 38% of the population of the state.

An initial review by a three-judge appeals panel determined that the law violated the Eighth Amendment.

The opinion, penned by Judge James Dennis, stated:

“Mississippi stands as an outlier among its sister states, bucking a clear and consistent trend in our nation against permanent disenfranchisement.

However, a second review by the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban in a 13-6 opinion in 2024.

Notably, only the Magnolia State and Virginia still have laws that “permanently disenfranchise first-time offenders who were convicted of non-violent and non-voting-related felonies,” the lawsuit notes.

Mississippi does have remedies for those who have been impacted by this provision.

A person can receive a pardon from the governor or a vote by two-thirds of the state legislature to overturn the ban.

Although the legislature only successfully intervened 18 times between 2013 and 2018, it is nevertheless a remedy if the law is unfairly applied.

The state also has the option of changing the law through the legislature.

As the filing noted, 26 states have opened voting rights to felons since 1974, USA Today reported.

If this were merely about changing the law, that would be the remedy of choice.

However, it seems that opponents have attempted to make a statement about the origins of the law rather than the merits of it.

Ironically, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her dissent, implied there is such a thing as a “black” and “white” crime.

She contends that the offenses that triggered the voting ban “still work the very harm the 1890 convention intended – denying black Mississippians the vote.”

The provision is certainly a relic of the segregation era, which is a blight on American history.

However, to say that a ban enforced for certain crimes is racist implies that people from a particular race are the only ones committing those crimes.

Ironically, that is the most racist assumption of all.

READ MORE – Lindsey Graham: Supreme Court Will Back Trump’s Crackdown on Birthright Citizenship

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