A Lifetime voting ban for felony convictions has been struck down in Mississippi.
Mississippi’s lifetime voting ban for people with disqualifying felony convictions has been struck down in a new decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
The court’s 2-1 decision will restore the right to vote for tens of thousands of Mississippians, according to the plaintiff’s council Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP.
The court ruled Thursday in the case of Hopkins v. Hosemann that by banning former offenders “from the body politic forever” they will be punished “beyond the term their culpability requires,” according to the decision.
The court argued that the ban, – Section 241 of Article XII in the Mississippi Constitution – “serves no protective function to society” and is thus “a cruel and unusual punishment.
