A federal court has issued a controversial ruling against Mississippi’s state ban on voting for convicted felons, leaving many to question if the ruling contradicts the U.S. Constitution.
Mississippi’s state Constitution has long denied the right to vote permanently for residents convicted of felonies, including serious crimes such as murder, rape, forgery, and any offenses deemed explicit by the state attorney general. But this longstanding practice came under scrutiny when the Southern Poverty Law Center challenged the Mississippi law.
Now, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Mississippi’s permanent ban on felon voting violates the Eight Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Federal Judge James Dennis, in his ruling, declared that Mississippi’s ban on felony voting “serves no legitimate penological purpose” and argued that it hinders the rehabilitation of convicted criminals.
“By severing former offenders from the body politic forever, [Mississippi] ensures that they will never be fully rehabilitated, continues to punish them beyond the term their culpability requires, and serves no protective function to society,” determined Dennis. “It is thus a cruel and unusual punishment.”
However, proponents of Mississippi’s stance, including Judge Edith Jones, who issued a dissenting opinion in the court’s ruling, argued that the Fourteenth Amendment grants states the right to deny certain citizens the privilege of voting. The amendment specifies that individuals can have their voting rights revoked if they engage in rebellion or “other crime.”
“The carve-out reflects a long tradition in this country, and before that, in British law, and before that, in the Western world,” Jones explained. “This tradition can be summed up in Lockean terms: if a person breaks a law, he has forfeited the right to participate in making them.”
Proponents of banning felons from voting also cite the Supreme Court ruling in Richardson v. Ramirez that determined such a ban to not be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court went on to state that the question of felon voting should be left up to the legislature.
In recent years, 35 states have chosen to abandon bans on felon voting. This trend is likely to continue as civil rights groups continue to put more pressure on state laws.
