Jim Crow-era lifetime ban on felons voting is unconstitutional, court rules

A panel of 5th Circuit judges ruled 2-1 in favor of the plaintiffs, writing that the section at issue in Mississippi’s state constitution “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.”

The plaintiffs succeeded using an uncommon legal strategy for voting rights cases, focusing on the Eighth Amendment and its prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Herman Parker Jr., one of the six named plaintiffs, wrote in the 2018 complaint that his conviction as a teenager should not bar him from participating in civic life.

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