''Richardson v. Ramirez'', 418 U.S. 24 (1974), was a

landmark decision Landmark court decisions, in present-day common law legal systems, establish precedents that determine a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially affect the interpretation of existing law. "Leading case" is commonly ...

by the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

in which the Court held, 6–3, that convicted felons could be barred from voting without violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Such

felony disenfranchisement Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...

is practiced in a number of states.

Background

In May 1972, Abran Ramirez, who had previously been convicted of a

felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that res ...

, was refused voter registration by a

county clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

San Luis Obispo County San Luis Obispo County (), officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a county on the Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 282,424. The county seat is San Luis Obispo. Junípero Serra founded the Mis ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, on grounds that he had one or more felonies on his criminal record. Joining with other plaintiffs who had also been denied registration for similar reasons, Ramirez brought a

class-action lawsuit A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

against

Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...

, who at the time was California's Secretary of State, challenging a state constitutional provision that permanently disenfranchised anyone convicted of an “infamous crime”, unless the right to vote was restored by court order or executive pardon. Typically in voting rights cases, states must show that the voting restriction is necessary to a “compelling state interest,” and is the least restrictive means of achieving the state's objective. In this case, the plaintiffs argued that the state had no compelling interest to justify denying them the

right to vote Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

. The

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

agreed that the law was unconstitutional. On appeal, however, the U.S. Supreme Court said that a state does not have to prove that its felony disenfranchisement laws serve a compelling state interest.

Opinion of the Court

Oral arguments were held on January 15, 1974. George J. Roth argued on behalf of the state of California, and Martin R. Glick argued on behalf of the petitioners. The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that California's law was constitutional. The majority opinion was written by Justice

William Rehnquist William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from ...

. The Court relied on Section 2 of the

Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and e ...

, which calls for reducing representation in the U.S. House of Representatives for any state that denies the right to vote to its voters (a provision designed to prevent the Southern states from disenfranchising black citizens after the Civil War). But Section 2 makes an exception for denying voting rights to citizens because of "participation in rebellion, or other crimes." The Court said that this distinguishes felony disenfranchisement from other forms of voting restrictions, which must be narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests in order to be constitutional. The Court also reviewed the legislative history of Section 2, and relied as well on the fact that when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, over half of the U.S. states allowed denying the right to vote to "persons convicted of felonies or infamous crimes."

References

External links

* *
Gabriel J. Chin, "Reconstruction, Felon Disenfranchisement and the Right to Vote: Did the Fifteenth Amendment Repeal Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment?", 92 Georgetown Law Journal 259(2004)
United States Supreme Court cases United States Fourteenth Amendment apportionment case law 1974 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court Right of prisoners to vote Right of felons to vote {{SCOTUS-stub

Background

Opinion of the Court

See also

References

External links