No. The state's law is constitutional. When the 14th Amendment was written, it included a special exception. It says that if a state denies men the right to vote, it can lose some of its power in Congress, UNLESS the reason for denying the vote is that the person participated in a rebellion or 'other crime.' That little exception for 'other crime' is a clear signal that the Constitution's authors were okay with states not allowing criminals to vote. You can't say one part of the amendment forbids this when another part specifically allows it.

Yes. The state's law is unconstitutional. The Court is reading history wrong. That 'other crime' part was a political deal to pressure Southern states to let Black men vote after the Civil War; it wasn't a permission slip for all states to ban ex-criminals from voting forever. The right to vote is one of the most important rights we have. If a state wants to take it away, it needs an extremely good reason. California doesn't have one here. Banning all ex-felons, even those who committed crimes that have nothing to do with voting, is unfair and goes too far.

I disagree that we should even be deciding this case. The California court's decision was based on its own state rules, so it's not our place as the federal Supreme Court to get involved.

No, it's not unfair. The Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment has a part that specifically says states can stop criminals from voting. This means that laws keeping felons from voting are usually seen as okay under the Constitution. The California Supreme Court was wrong to say the law was unfair, so the case needs another look. We looked at the history of when this part of the Constitution was written, and it seems clear that the people who wrote it thought it was okay to stop felons from voting. Other court decisions in the past have also said it's okay. So, even though times have changed, we think this old rule still applies and it's not against the Constitution to stop felons from voting.

The Court's decision doesn't properly think about the Constitution's promise of equal treatment for all people. It focuses too much on one part of the Fourteenth Amendment that was a compromise and not really about equal rights. We should look at what equal treatment means today, not outdated ideas from when the Amendment was written. By today's standards, completely stopping ex-felons from voting is unfair because it's too extreme. The reasons the state gave, like worrying about fraud or how ex-felons might vote, aren't good enough to justify such a broad rule. Many experts and organizations think ex-felons should be allowed to vote. The idea of stopping felons from voting comes from old, outdated ideas and doesn't fit with our modern understanding of fairness and equal rights.

Justice Douglas agrees with part of what Justice Marshall said and thinks the case shouldn't be decided by the Supreme Court because it might be based on California state law, not federal law.

For example, the Supreme Court has held that states may, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, deprive convicted felons of the right to vote even after they have completed their sentences and paroles.

—holding that disenfranchisement of convicted criminals, without more, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

The Supreme Court held that, unlike any other voting qualification, felon disenfranchisement laws are explicitly endorsed by the text of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court has ruled that, as a result of this language, felon disenfranchisement provisions are presumptively constitutional.

—"the exclusion of felons from the vote has an affirmative sanction in § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment," and that,[section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment], in dealing with voting rights as it does, could not have been meant to bar outright a form of disenfranchisement which was expressly exempted from the less drastic sanction of reduced representation which § 2 for other …

The district court's reasoning is consistent with that of the United States Supreme Court, which has held that a state law that disqualifies felons from voting does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

T] he exclusion of felons from the vote has an affirmative sanction in § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment

To support this theory, Petitioners point to the language in the Reconstruction Act that the electorate for the state constitutional conventions are " `the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be …

But, the Supreme Court has applied a lesser burden when evaluating the constitutionality of literacy tests, felon disenfranchisement laws, and voter identification laws.

Further, statutes eliminating the right of felons to bear arms or vote have been upheld as constitutional.[5

No. A state law disenfranchising convicted felons does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Unlike other voting restrictions that have been struck down, the disenfranchisement of felons has an 'affirmative sanction' in Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 2 reduces a state's congressional representation for denying the franchise to male citizens, but it expressly exempts denial 'for participation in rebellion, or other crime.' The Court reasoned that the framers of the Amendment could not have intended Section 1 (the Equal Protection Clause) to prohibit a practice that Section 2 explicitly exempted from its own, lesser penalty. This understanding is supported by the legislative history of the Amendment, the fact that 29 states had similar laws at the time of its adoption, and the conditions Congress imposed on former Confederate states for readmission to the Union. Therefore, the strict scrutiny standard applied in other voting rights cases is not applicable here.

Yes. A state law that disenfranchises ex-felons violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The majority's historical analysis is flawed; Section 2 was a political compromise intended to force Southern states to enfranchise Black voters, not to provide a blanket authorization for states to disenfranchise any group for committing a crime. The right to vote is fundamental and any restriction on it must be subjected to strict scrutiny, requiring the state to show a compelling interest. California failed to meet this burden, as the law is overinclusive by banning all felons rather than just those who have committed election-related crimes, and less restrictive means exist to prevent vote fraud. To allow disenfranchisement based on how a group might vote is antithetical to the principles of a representative democracy. (Justice Marshall also argued that the Court lacked jurisdiction because the case was moot and the judgment below rested on an independent state ground).

This opinion dissents on jurisdictional grounds, agreeing with Part I-A of Justice Marshall's dissent. The case should not be decided on the merits because the judgment of the California Supreme Court rests on an independent state ground, meaning it is not a federal question that the U.S. Supreme Court has the authority to review.

No, the disenfranchisement of felons does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because Section 2 of the Amendment expressly exempts felony disenfranchisement from the sanction of reduced representation in Congress that Section 2 otherwise imposes for disenfranchisement. This demonstrates that the framers of the Amendment did not intend to prohibit felon disenfranchisement in Section 1. The legislative history of the Amendment's adoption and subsequent readmission of states to the Union further supports this interpretation. The Court's prior decisions have also indicated approval of such laws. Therefore, the Supreme Court of California erred in concluding that California's felon disenfranchisement laws violate the Equal Protection Clause. The historical understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment is confirmed by the decisions of this Court which have discussed the constitutionality of provisions disenfranchising felons. Although the Court has never given plenary consideration to the precise question of whether a State may constitutionally exclude some or all convicted felons from the franchise, we have indicated approval of such exclusions on a number of occasions. We hold that the understanding of those who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, as reflected in the express language of § 2 and in the historical and judicial interpretation of the Amendment's applicability to state laws disenfranchising felons, is of controlling significance in distinguishing such laws from those other state limitations on the franchise which have been held invalid under the Equal Protection Clause by this Court.

The Court's opinion fails to properly consider the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and relies too heavily on the superficial appeal of Section 2. Section 2 was a compromise that had little to do with the broader purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause should be interpreted based on current standards of equal protection jurisprudence, not outdated notions from the Amendment's adoption. Measured against modern standards, blanket disenfranchisement of ex-felons violates equal protection because it is not necessary to promote a compelling state interest. The state interests of preventing voter fraud and excluding those who may vote against criminal laws are not sufficiently narrowly tailored to justify the broad disenfranchisement of all ex-felons. The disenfranchisement of ex-felons had its origin in the fogs and fictions of feudal jurisprudence and doubtless has been brought forward into modern statutes without fully realizing either the effect of its literal significance or the extent of its infringement upon the spirit of our system of government. Measured against the standards of this Court's modern equal protection jurisprudence, the blanket disenfranchisement of ex-felons cannot stand.

Agreeing with Part I-A of Justice Marshall's opinion, Justice Douglas dissents from a reversal of the judgment below as he cannot say that it does not rest on an independent state ground.

Richardson v. Ramirez

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