Published on: Friday, August 26, 2022

Mississippi's constitution disenfranchises felons convicted of certain crimes. The section was originally adopted in 1890, was "steeped in racism” and aimed at preventing Black people from voting by listing what were thought to be “Black crimes.” It's since been reenacted twice—in 1950 and 1968—via legislative proposal and ratification by the people. Two Black men convicted of forgery and embezzlement challenged the law contending that they were still tainted by racial animus. Fifth Circuit (en banc, per curiam): “Mississippi has conclusively shown that any taint associated with Section 241 has been cured.”

Dissent (seven judges on the 17-member en banc court): A law expressly aimed at preventing Black Mississippians from voting cannot be saved via reenactment by a virtually all-white group of people who engaged in massive and violent resistance to the Civil Rights Movement—some of whom burned a cross on my grandmother's lawn, two doors down from where I grew up. “Mississippians have simply not been given the chance to right the wrongs of its racist origins. And this court … deprives Mississippians of this opportunity by upholding an unconstitutional law enacted for the purpose of discriminating against Black Mississippians on the basis of race.”

The case is Harness v. Watson, No. 19-60632 (5th Cir. Aug. 24, 2022).