JACKSON, Miss. Mississippi lawmakers, not the courts, must decide whether to change the state’s practice of taking away voting rights of people convicted of certain crimes, including nonviolent felonies such as forgery and lumber theft, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The majority of judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the Supreme Court in 1974 reaffirmed the constitutional law that allows states to disenfranchise felons.
“Do the hard work of persuading your fellow citizens that the law must change,” the majority wrote.
Nineteen appeals court judges heard arguments in January, months after overturning a decision handed down last August by a panel of three judges from the same court. The panel said Mississippi ban on voting after certain crimes violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
In Thursday’s ruling, the dissenting justices wrote that the majority extended the Supreme Court’s previous ruling “beyond all recognition.” The dissenting justices wrote that Mississippi’s practice of depriving the rights of people who have served their sentences is cruel and unusual.
Tens of thousands of Mississippi residents are deprived of rights under a part of the state constitution that says those convicted of 10 specific crimes, including bribery, theft and arson, lose the right to vote. Under the leadership of a former state attorney general, who was a Democrat, the list was expanded to 22 crimes, including timber theft – felling and stealing trees from someone else’s property – and car theft.
To have their voting rights restored, people convicted of either crime must obtain a pardon from the governor, which rarely happens, or persuade legislators to pass individual bills just for them with two-thirds approval. Lawmakers in recent years have passed few such bills. They have not passed any in 2023.
In March, a Mississippi Senate committee leader killed a proposal this would have allowed for the automatic restoration of voting rights five years after a person is convicted or released from prison for some nonviolent crimes. The bill passed the Republican-controlled House 99-9, but Senate Constitution Committee Chair Angela Hill said she blocked it because “we already have some processes in place” to restore person-by-person voting rights. .
Mississippi’s original list of disenfranchisement crimes derives from the Jim Crow eraand lawyers who filed suit to challenge the list say the framers of the state constitution removed the right to vote for crimes they considered black people to be more likely to commit.
In 1950, Mississippi removed robbery from the list of disenfranchisement crimes. Murder and rape were added in 1968. Two lawsuits in recent years have challenged Mississippi’s criminal disenfranchisement.
Lawyers representing the state in a lawsuit argued that these changes “cured any discriminatory stain.” The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals court agreed in 2022, and the Supreme Court said in June 2023 that it would not reconsider the appeals court’s decision.
The 5th Circuit is one of the most conservative appellate courts. It is based in New Orleans and handles cases in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
The 19 judges who heard arguments in January include 17 with active, full-time status and two with senior status, with limited caseloads and responsibilities.
The majority opinion was written by Judge Edith Jones, who was appointed by former Republican President Ronald Reagan and is still on active duty. The result was agreed upon by the other 11 active judges appointed by Republican Party presidents. A nominee of Democratic President Joe Biden, Judge Irma Ramirez, voted with the majority to reject the panel’s previous ruling.
The dissent was written by Judge James Dennis, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and now holds a senior position. He was joined by Senior Judge Carolyn Dineen King, an appointee of former President Jimmy Carter, and five other Democratic appointees serving on active duty on the court.
Dennis, King and Jones formed the three-member panel whose 2-1 decision was reversed.
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Kevin McGill reported from New Orleans.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
