From Orlando Sentinel/News Service of Florida:
Gov. Ron DeSantis asks court to revisit Florida felon voting ruling
Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers remarks during the dedication ceremony for the Groveland Four monument in front of the Lake County historical courthouse in Tavares, Fla., Friday, February 21, 2020. DeSantis, elected officials, family members and community leaders participated in the ceremony, honoring the four men who were falsely accused of a rape in 1949. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers remarks during the dedication ceremony for the Groveland Four monument in front of the Lake County historical courthouse in Tavares, Fla., Friday, February 21, 2020. DeSantis, elected officials, family members and community leaders participated in the ceremony, honoring the four men who were falsely accused of a rape in 1949. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers remarks during the dedication ceremony for the Groveland Four monument in front of the Lake County historical courthouse in Tavares, Fla., Friday, February 21, 2020. DeSantis, elected officials, family members and community leaders participated in the ceremony, honoring the four men who were falsely accused of a rape in 1949. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
TALLAHASSEE — 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.
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.
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.”
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.\\
1 comment:
Hi Ed how come voters cant have a copy of their voting choices. Then everyone could be sure their vote counted.
Once you turn in the white card the computer becomes only witness to the truth.
I want a receipt from now on....
Is this possible?
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