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A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law to describe an offense that resulted in the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods, to which additional punishments including capital punishment could be added; other crimes were called misdemeanors. Following conviction of a felony in a court of law, a person may be described as a felon or a convicted felon.
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. Disfranchisement can also refer to the revocation of power or control of a particular individual, community or being to the natural amenity they have; that is to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, of some privilege or inherent immunity. Disfranchisement may be accomplished explicitly by law or implicitly through requirements applied in a discriminatory fashion, through intimidation, or by placing unreasonable requirements on voters for registration or voting.
Civil death is the loss of all or almost all civil rights by a person due to a conviction for a felony or due to an act by the government of a country that results in the loss of civil rights. It is usually inflicted on persons convicted of crimes against the state or adults determined by a court to be legally incompetent because of mental disability.
Voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been a moral and political issue throughout United States history.
Muntaqim v. Coombe, 449 F.3d 371, was a legal challenge to New York State’s law disenfranchising individuals convicted of felonies while in prison and on parole. The plaintiff, Jalil Abdul Muntaqim who is serving a life sentence, argues that the law has a disproportionate impact on African Americans and therefore violates Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act as a denial of the right to vote on account of race.
Hayden v. Pataki, 449 F.3d 305, was a legal challenge to New York State's law disenfranchising individuals convicted of felonies while in prison and on parole. New York State is one of the 47 states to prohibit citizens from voting while in prison.
Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the 1890 Mississippi constitution and its statutes that set requirements for voter registration, including poll tax, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, and the requirement that only registered voters could serve on juries. The plaintiff, Henry Williams, claimed that Mississippi’s voting laws were upheld with the intent to disenfranchise African Americans, thus violating the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court did not find discrimination in the state's laws because, even though the laws made discrimination possible, the laws themselves did not discriminate against African Americans. The court found that any discrimination toward African Americans was performed by the administrative officers enforcing the law and that there was no judicial remedy for this kind of discrimination.
The Fifth Party System is the era of American national politics that began with the New Deal in 1932 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This era of Democratic Party-dominance emerged from the realignment of the voting blocs and interest groups supporting the Democratic Party into the New Deal coalition. Following the Great Depression, most black voters switched from the GOP to the Democratic Party, and some conservative, white southern Democrats shifted to the Republican Party as the Democratic party became known as the party of civil rights; this process accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s. For this reason, it is often called the "New Deal Party System". It followed the Fourth Party System, usually called the Progressive Era, and was followed by the Sixth Party System. However, there is a dispute about when the Sixth Party System began.
Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held, 6–3, that convicted felons could be barred from voting without violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Such felony disenfranchisement is practiced in a number of states.
Loss of rights due to criminal conviction refers to the practice in some countries of reducing the rights of individuals who have been convicted of a criminal offence. The restrictions are in addition to other penalties such as incarceration or fines. In addition to restrictions imposed directly upon conviction, there can also be collateral civil consequences resulting from a criminal conviction, but which are not imposed directly by the courts as a result of the conviction.
Employment discrimination against persons with criminal records in the United States has been illegal since enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [citation?] Employers retain the right to lawfully consider an applicant's or employee's criminal conviction(s) for employment purposes e.g., hiring, retention, promotion, benefits, and delegated duties.
Felony disenfranchisement in the United States is the suspension or withdrawal of voting rights due to the conviction of a criminal offense. The actual class of crimes that results in disenfranchisement vary between jurisdictions, but most commonly classed as felonies, or may be based on a certain period of incarceration or other penalty. In some jurisdictions disfranchisement is permanent, while in others suffrage is restored after a person has served a sentence, or completed parole or probation. Felony disenfranchisement is one among the collateral consequences of criminal conviction and the loss of rights due to conviction for criminal offense. In 2016, 6.1 million individuals were disenfranchised on account of a conviction, 2.47% of voting-age citizens. As of October 2020, it was estimated that 5.1 million voting-age US citizens were disenfranchised for the 2020 presidential election on account of a felony conviction, 1 in 44 citizens. As suffrage rights are generally bestowed by state law, state felony disenfranchisement laws also apply to elections to federal offices.
Christopher J. Uggen is a Regents professor and Distinguished McKnight Professor of sociology and law at the University of Minnesota, where he also holds the Martindale Chair in Sociology. Uggen is best known for his work on public criminology, desistance from crime and the life course, crime in the workplace, sexual harassment, and the effects of mass incarceration, including Felon disenfranchisement, reentry, recidivism, and inequality.
Rights restoration is the process of restoring voting rights to people with prior felony convictions who lost their voting rights under felony disenfranchisement. It may also refer to additional civil rights that are taken away upon conviction, such as holding public office and serving on a jury.
Broadly speaking, the term racial threat refers to how people react to those of a different race. More specifically, the racial threat hypothesis or racial threat theory proposes that a higher population of members of a minority race results in the dominant race imposing higher levels of social control on the subordinate race, which, according to this hypothesis, occurs as a result of the dominant race fearing the subordinate race's political, economic, or criminal threat. Racial threat theory is also known as minority group threat theory. In his 1949 book, political scientist V. O. Key found that white voters in the U.S. South turned out at higher rates and voted more for conservative politicians in areas with high levels of African-Americans; Key argued that whites felt threatened by African-Americans, thus becoming more politically motivated.
This is a timeline of voting rights in the United States. The timeline highlights milestones when groups of people in the United States gained voting rights, and also documents aspects of disenfranchisement in the country.
Felony disenfranchisement in Virginia is a provision of the Virginia Constitution: "No person who has been convicted of a felony shall be qualified to vote unless his civil rights have been restored by the Governor or other appropriate authority".
Felony disenfranchisement in Florida is currently a contentious political issue in Florida. Though the general principle of felony disenfranchisement is not in dispute, the disenfranchisement of people who had been convicted of a felony and have served their sentence — that includes prison, bail and parole — but continue being barred from voting if they have outstanding fines, fees or restitution obligations is in contention. Prior to January 8, 2019, when Amendment 4 came into effect, people convicted of a felony effectively lost their right to vote for life, as it could only be restored by the governor as an act of clemency, which rarely occurred. Florida was one of four states with a lifetime ban, the others being Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia.
Florida Amendment 4, also the Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative, is an amendment to the Constitution of Florida passed by ballot initiative on November 6, 2018, as part of the 2018 Florida elections. The proposition restored the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation. The amendment does not apply to Floridians convicted of murder or sexual offenses.
Demetrius Jifunza is an American Christian Methodist Episcopal pastor and activist who is among the most visible spokespersons and leaders in the felony disenfranchisement, Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative.
References
- ↑ Sengupta, Somini (3 November 2000). "Felony Costs Voting Rights for a Lifetime in 9 States". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
- ↑ Kozlowska, Hanna (6 October 2016). "What would happen if felons could vote in the US?". Quartz. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
- ↑ McElwee, Sean (2 April 2017). "The voting rights issue no one talks about: Ending the disenfranchisement of felons will strengthen democracy". Salon. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
- ↑ Franke-Ruta, Garance (2 October 2013). "It's Not Just Obamacare: The Real, Spectacular Rise in Opposition to Government Programs". The Atlantic. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
- Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks, Social Cleavages and Political Change, Oxford University Press 1999
- Jeff Manza, Fay Lomax Cook, and Benjamin Page, Navigating Public Opinion, Oxford University Press 2002
- Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen, Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States Oxford University Press 2006
- Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza, Why Welfare State Persist University of Chicago Press 2007
- Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza, Whose Rights? Counterterrorism and the Dark Side of U.S. Public Opinion Russell Sage Foundation Press 2013
