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'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
Apr 23, 2024
Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
However, Mitchell Brown, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, said that "Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to reengage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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Poor People's Campaign, Families Demand DOJ Probe of Over 100 West Virginia Jail Deaths
"Poverty or a prison sentence should not be a death sentence," asserted campaign co-chair Bishop William J. Barber II after relatives of inmates who died last year told their loved ones' stories.
Feb 23, 2023
Activists with the Poor People's Campaign and relatives of some of the 13 inmates who died at West Virginia's Southern Regional Jail last year held a press conference Thursday to implore the Biden administration to investigate conditions at the notorious lockup, as well as the deaths of more than 100 prisoners in the state during the last 10 years.
"We're doing this on behalf of the 13 people who have died senselessly, we believe, at the Southern Regional Jail... and on behalf of over 100 more who have died within West Virginia regional jails over the last decade," Bishop William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, said at the online conference.
Speaking to Common Dreams by phone after the press conference, Barber said that "we need a full, independent investigation by the Justice Department. We're talking about basic civil rights and human dignity. Give us the truth. Give us justice."
"We need a full, independent investigation by the Justice Department. We're talking about basic civil rights and human dignity. Give us the truth. Give us justice."
"There are too many unanswered questions here," he added. "We're talking about people dying in jail."
In one case, a man jailed at Southern Regional Jail (SRJ) for littering and missing a court date died 81 days after his arrest. In another, a woman died after she was brutally beaten and literally torn apart by inmates looking for drugs in her private parts.
Latasha Williams, whose 37-year-old fiancée Quantez Burks died a day after he was locked up at SRJ for alleged wanton endangerment and obstruction, said she only found out her partner was dead when she called to inquire about posting bond the day after his arrest.
"The magistrate said, 'I hate to tell you this, but he passed away last night at 9:00 pm,'" Williams recounted. "I threw the phone and started crying... and I [said] they lying, it's somebody else, 'cause I just talked to him."
\u201cHelp us End Dangerous, Inhumane, and Unconstitutional Conditions in West Virginia Jails https://t.co/4TBpGzMexW\u201d— Rev Dr Liz Theoharis (@Rev Dr Liz Theoharis) 1677171994
After state officials said the cause of Burks' death was "natural," his loved ones raised $5,000 for an independent autopsy by Pittsburgh forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, a former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
"We just felt like there was probably some foul play in it, and that's really what made us decide to get that second autopsy," Burks explained.
"Findings were consistent with being handcuffed while being beaten," she said. "Both of his wrists were broken. He had an arm broken, nose broken, and a leg bone broken. He also had blunt force trauma to his whole body, including his head. He also had a heart attack, which they said was probably caused by the stress his body was put into."
Reacting to Burks' remarks, Barber asserted that "poverty or a prison sentence should not be a death sentence."
"We need an independent federal investigation. We need it now. We need the Justice Department to come in and meet with these families."
"Countless low-income West Virginians of all races... have died under the watch of the state prison and jail system," he continued. "We need an independent federal investigation. We need it now. We need the Justice Department to come in and meet with these families."
"The mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and family members of those who have died at the hands of our jail system in West Virginia need and deserve answers," Barber added. "We cannot allow our elected leaders to continue to ignore what is unfolding right in front of them."
\u201cWhy did Alvis Shrewsbury die 19 days after turning himself in for DUI? Why was he complaining to his family about broken ribs & black eyes? And why is this the 5th person to have died while incarcerated at the Southern Regional Jail in WV? We NEED answers!https://t.co/LDDUnxJN7U\u201d— Ben Crump (@Ben Crump) 1664410680
Barber urged U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Republican Gov. Jim Justice to support an independent federal probe into the "dangerous, inhumane, and unconstitutional conditions in the Southern Regional Jail."
"You don't have video. You don't have body cameras," said Barber. "But you have real lives and real families and tremendous pain and death and people going in for... minor offenses and then family members finding out, sometimes in less than 24 hours, sometimes less than 24 days, that a loved one is dead, dead, dead. And all kinds of questions have gone unanswered."
While the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year conducted an investigation of conditions at SRJ, critics including attorneys for inmates at the jail called the probe a "sham."
Barber told Common Dreams that "only a full federal investigation, with the DOJ and its power of the federal purse strings," would be sufficient to "give us the truth" and answer the questions of those whose loved ones died at SRJ.
"Systems that investigate themselves are not as thorough, and are prone to cover-ups," he added.
Thursday's press conference came as current and former prisoners filed a new class-action lawsuit this week over conditions at SRJ. The suit alleges that inmates are denied access to drinking water, that they face dangerous overcrowding, mold, human sewage, toilet water, rats, sexual assault, and other violence.
According to WVNS journalist Jessica Farrish, who has reported extensively on the jail:
The suit states that up to 16 mentally ill people are forced inside of an alleged "suicide cell" that measures 120 square feet, and that prison and medical staff allegedly leave them in the cell for days. Attorneys also say jail staff allegedly destroys legal mail sent to inmates, opens inmates' legal mail when they are not present, and photocopies legal mail sent to inmates.
A previous class-action lawsuit filed last year alleges abuse and mistreatment at SRJ.
\u201cHe didn\u2019t clean up the trash in his mother\u2019s yard on time. Eighty one days later, he died in a West Virginia jail.\nhttps://t.co/SknZsUgja5\u201d— Mountain State Spotlight (@Mountain State Spotlight) 1666009680
"Hearing these stories, my heart is breaking," said Rev. Dr. Liz Theoris, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign. "This drive to criminalize the poor is immoral and poverty and incarceration... should not be a death sentence."
"Enough is enough. This has to stop," she added. "We are calling... on our elected officials and on the DOJ to make a difference. We are calling on Sen. Manchin and Gov. Justice to hear the cries of the families seeking answers and to do what's right."
A state investigation into conditions at SRJ that concluded inmates were lying about abuse was widely dismissed as grossly inadequate.
As an October 2022 editorial in the Register-Herald, a Beckley, West Virginia-based paper, noted:
The state report on conditions at SRJ was produced lickety-split, in about 30 days, by West Virginia Homeland Security Secretary Jeff Sandy, who cooked the books to deny any problems whatsoever at the facility. A high school term paper would have been more revealing—and more credible. Sandy once served as chair of the Regional Jail Board from 2012 to 2016 and now serves in the governor's cabinet.
Yes, the governor directed an insider to conduct a fair and impartial investigation. Even a blind man could see that was never going to happen. As such, the problems at SRJ persist because they have not been meaningfully addressed—and inmates are dying because of it.
Kat Robles, an attorney at the advocacy group Forward Justice, specifically called on the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to launch an investigation under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, which empowers the DOJ to probe abuse and neglect in prisons and jails, mental health facilities, and other institutions.
"This is an urgent crisis. This is an outrage," said Robles, who added that what's needed is "not just an investigation."
"We want them to meet with community leaders, to meet with families, and to remedy this urgent crisis," she said.
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