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Long after he served his sentence for a crime committed more than 20 years ago, Dennis Hopkins said he still felt like a “branded man.” friend, Long after he served his sentence for a crime committed more than 20 years ago, Dennis Hopkins said he still felt like a “branded man.” In 1890, Mississippi adopted a state constitution that was specifically intended to prevent formerly enslaved people and their descendants from voting. In modern times, a provision of that constitution — a lifetime voting ban for anyone convicted of certain crimes — is still having its intended effect: Between 1994 and 2017, nearly 50,000 Mississippians, including Hopkins, were banned for life from voting due to conviction of a disqualifying offense. So, we sued. In 2018, the SPLC and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, LLP, filed a lawsuit claiming that Mississippi’s lifetime voting ban arbitrarily grants or deprives citizens who reside in Mississippi of the right to vote and was intended to discriminate on the basis of race. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that Mississippi’s lifetime voting ban for people with disqualifying felony convictions who have completed their sentences is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Now, for the first time since his conviction, Hopkins, a foster parent, business owner and community volunteer, will be able to exercise his right to vote in Mississippi. In recent decades, Black voting-age Mississippians have been disenfranchised at over twice the rate of white voting-age Mississippians. In a state where Black voters have been historically barred from voting through complex, intentional and targeted restrictions, this victory is deeply impactful. “This is a tremendous victory for the state of Mississippi,” said SPLC Mississippi State Office Director Waikinya Clanton. “People have paid their debt to society and have been oppressed from exercising their voting rights for far too long. This is a huge win in the fight to restore dignity and respect to the voice of the disenfranchised voter in Mississippi.” Sincerly, Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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