Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today

A provision of the 1890 Mississippi Constitution designed to prevent Black people voting was not meant to be punitive, the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch argued Tuesday before a full panel of the U.S. 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The full panel of the New Orleans-based appeals court is hearing the second case in less than three years claiming a provision of the Mississippi Constitution that permanently prohibits some people convicted of felonies from voting is in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

In August a three-judge panel of the 5 ^th Circuit in a 2-1 decision found that the lifetime voting ban violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because it is cruel and unusual. ...

If House Bill 1020 becomes law later this session, the white chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city's majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state attorney general would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state public safety commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.

The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.

Mississippi's capital city is 80% Black and home to a higher percentage of Black residents than any major American city. Mississippi's Legislature is thoroughly controlled by white Republicans, who have redrawn districts over the past 30 years to ensure they can pass any bill without a single Democratic vote. Every legislative Republican is white, and most Democrats are Black....

The United States Supreme Court is being asked to find unconstitutional Mississippi’s lifetime ban on people convicted of many felonies being able to vote.

“The justices normally take about 1% of the cases they are asked to hear, but I think the odds are higher here,” said Rob McDuff, one of the attorneys who filed the case and director of the Impact Litigation Project at the Mississippi Center for Justice. “This is an important and interesting case.

“And it deals with issues that we are still grappling with in terms of race.”...

Editor's note: This story contains graphic language. Also, you can read Judge James Graves' complete dissent at the bottom of this story.

A dissent written by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James Graves Jr. could play a key role in determining whether the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal of a case that has, so far, upheld Mississippi's Jim Crow-era constitutional provision written to keep Black people from voting.

Last month, the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a Mississippi constitutional provision that bans people convicted of certain felonies from voting. White leaders in Mississippi included most of those specific felonies in the state's 1890 Constitution because they thought those crimes were more likely to be committed by African Americans....