State wants court to look again at felons voting

Elbert P. Tuttle Courthouse in Atlanta (Photo courtesy: United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is asking an appellate court to revisit a three-judge panel’s decision this month that upheld a federal judge’s ruling that the state cannot deprive the right to vote to felons who are unable to pay court-ordered fees and fines.

The 33-page motion, filed Wednesday, asks the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case, what is known as an “en banc” hearing. The motion accused the three-judge panel of applying the wrong type of analysis, known as “heightened scrutiny,” to arrive at the Feb. 19 decision.

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The panel should have relied instead on a “rational-basis review” used by other courts when weighing similar matters, lawyers for the state argued.

In urging the full court to reconsider the decision, the state called the case a “paradigmatic candidate for en banc review.”

“Indeed, it is difficult to think of an issue more important to the sovereignty of a state than the makeup of its electorate,” lawyers for DeSantis and his administration wrote in the motion filed with the Atlanta-based appeals court.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled in October that a state law requiring felons to pay court-ordered financial obligations, such as fees, fines and restitution, was unconstitutional.

The law, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year, was aimed at carrying out a constitutional amendment, known as Amendment 4, that restored voting rights to felons who have completed terms of their sentences. Voting-rights groups challenged the law, arguing that hinging voting rights on felons’ finances amounts to a modern-day “poll tax.”

The Florida law “unconstitutionally punishes a class of felons based only on their wealth,” the three-judge panel wrote in upholding Hinkle’s ruling.

Requiring all felons to pay financial obligations violates equal protection rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment because it “punishes those who cannot pay more harshly than those who can,” judges Lanier Anderson III, Stanley Marcus and Barbara Rothstein decided.

But the state argued that the judges’ ruling created a split “with the only other circuit court (of appeals) that has addressed the question,” which “heightened” the significance of the case.

The 2018 constitutional amendment restored voting rights to felons “who have completed all terms of their sentence, including parole or probation,” excluding people “convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense.”

A legislative fight broke out last year over the interpretation of “all terms of their sentences,” with the Republican-dominated Legislature approving a measure that required the payment of “legal financial obligations” ordered by the court.

Voting- and civil-rights groups immediately challenged the law, arguing in part that linking voting rights with finances equates to a Jim Crow-era “poll tax.”

Proponents of the amendment, approved by more than 65 percent of Florida voters, have maintained that it could restore voting rights to as many as 1.4 million Floridians. The state law requiring payment of financial obligations to vote could disqualify hundreds of thousands of potential voters, according to court documents.

DeSantis and his lawyers have repeatedly insisted that, because states are allowed to permanently disenfranchise felons, the law is constitutional.

“Indeed, it is entirely rational for the people of Florida to insist that all felons repay their debt to society in full before rejoining the electorate, and that is true even if the analysis focuses solely on those unable to pay and even if the majority of felons were not able to pay,” the state’s lawyers argued in Wednesday’s motion.

Florida’s “interest in retribution is not satisfied until the terms of a felon’s sentence are completed in full,” DeSantis’ lawyers wrote.

“This is true regardless of whether a felon can afford any financial terms of his or her sentence,” they added. “By reasoning that a state rationally may not insist in all circumstances on a full measure of justice -- justice as determined by the judge and jury in each felon’s case -- before determining that a felon’s breach with society has been healed and that the felon therefore may rejoin the voting community, the panel effectively attacks the validity of the underlying punishment itself.”

The state’s lawyers last week asked the appellate court to continue preventing felons from voting while the appeal is underway.

In a brief Feb. 21, DeSantis’ lawyers wrote that “a majority of the active judges on this court will likely agree to hear the case en banc” and overturn the panel decision.

The three-judge panel had rejected a state argument that requiring payment of financial obligations provides an incentive for felons to pay.

“The state cannot draw blood from a stone,” the judges wrote.

The state’s position, they wrote, “relies on the notion that the destitute would only, with the prospect of being able to vote, begin to scratch and claw for every penny, ignoring the far more powerful incentives that already exist for them -- like putting food on the table, a roof over their heads, and clothes on their backs.”


About the Author:

Senior reporter, News Service of Florida