The US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that an 1890 state constitutional provision permanently preventing people convicted of certain felonies from voting, Section 241, is unconstitutional.
Judge James Dennis writing for the majority, discussed the racial history of the Mississippi Constitution that was ratified in 1890, writing, “From the outset, the object of the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention was clear: to ensure the political supremacy of the white race.” The court found that Section 241 violates the 8th Amendment prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment,” writing:
Mississippi denies this precious right to a large class of its citizens, automatically, mechanically, and with no thought given to whether it is proportionate as punishment for an amorphous and partial list of crimes. In so excluding former offenders from a basic aspect of democratic life, often long after their sentences have been served, Mississippi inflicts a disproportionate punishment that has been rejected by a majority of the states and, in the independent judgment of this court informed by our precedents, is at odds with society’s evolving standards of decency. Section 241 therefore exacts a cruel and unusual punishment on Plaintiffs.
Judge Edith Jones dissented, writing, “[t]oday’s ruling disregards text, precedent, and common sense to secure its preferred outcome. This end-justifies-means analysis has no place in constitutional law.”
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Mississippi State Office Director Waikinya Clanton celebrated the ruling, stating, “People have paid their debt to society and have been oppressed from exercising their voting rights for far too long. This is a huge win in the fight to restore dignity and respect to the voice of the disenfranchised voter in Mississippi.”
Felon disenfranchisement laws are common across the Southern US and are associated with the Jim Crow era of legally backed discrimination against Black people in the US. Jim Crow began after the Reconstruction Period at the end of the American Civil War. Reconstruction was a period defined by heightened federal involvement in Southern states, allowing Black Americans to vote, hold office and use public accommodations. However, the Reconstruction Period ended in 1877, leading to the Jim Crow era, which lasted until 1968, with the passing of the Fair Housing Act, Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. Jim Crow Laws included so-called Black Codes, which regulated where and for how much Black Americans in the South could work, and segregation laws which prevented Black Americans from using public accommodations that were assigned as “whites only.” Other laws were specifically aimed at preventing Black Americans from voting, such as poll taxes, racially biased intelligence tests required in order to vote, and felon disenfranchisement laws. While the Northern US also had many Jim Crow laws, they largely proliferated in the Southern US. Many of the laws born during this period for the purpose of discrimination are still in effect today.
The Sentencing Project, a non-profit that tracks the effects of felon disenfranchisement laws, found that Mississippi disenfranchises almost 11% of its voting population due to Section 241, with Black Americans making up 59% of Mississippi’s disenfranchised population. The US Supreme Court refused to hear a similar case challenging Section 241 in 2022.
