Supreme Court Leaves In Place Mississippi's Voting Bar For People Convicted Of Some Crimes

The Supreme Court on Monday left in place Mississippi's Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft.

The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal from Mississippi residents who have completed their sentences, but who have been unable to regain their right to vote.

The court's action let stand a ruling by the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected the claim that permanent loss of voting rights amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws, the 5th circuit said.

Using different legal arguments, lawyers failed to get the Supreme Court to take up the felon disenfranchisement issue in 2023, over a dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Mississippi's list of disqualifying crimes was "adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose," Jackson wrote.

No justice noted a dissent from Monday's order.