Farrakhan v. Gregoire
Court Cases

Farrakhan v. Gregoire
Voting After Criminal Conviction

The Center has filed three amicus briefs in support of this Voting Rights Act (VRA) challenge to the state of Washington’s felony disenfranchisement policy. Plaintiffs assert that felony disenfranchisement in Washington denies the right to vote on account of race. A Brennan Center brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in April 2001 focused on the district judge’s flawed analysis of the causal connection between felony disenfranchisement and racial bias necessary in order to prevail under the Voting Rights Act. Under the judge’s extremely narrow standard, the state’s felony disenfranchisement policy would not violate the Act because its disparate racial impact results from discrimination in the criminal justice system, not the challenged voting qualification itself. Such a test effectively reads a requirement of discriminatory intent back into the Voting Rights Act, something Congress has explicitly rejected.

On July 25, 2003, the Ninth Circuit overturned the district court’s decision, adopting much of the analysis in the Center’s amicus brief. The court held that racial bias in the criminal justice system is a relevant social and historical factor that courts may consider in determining whether disenfranchisement laws discriminate on account of race.

On February 24, 2004, the Ninth Circuit denied en banc review, over a seven-judge dissent. The state petitioned the United States Supreme Court for review, and the Center filed a brief arguing that the Court should deny review. We explained that any decision on the applicability of the Voting Rights Act in Farrakhan would not decide the question of the Act’s applicability to claims like those of our clients in Johnson v. Bush, who are challenging a permanent disenfranchisement regime in Florida that was originally adopted as part of a multifaceted scheme to deplete African American’s political power.

On November 8, 2004, the Supreme Court denied review. The case proceeded to trial in the Eastern District of Washington in March 2006.

In July 2006, the district court ruled against plaintiffs, maintaining that the state’s felony disenfranchisement provision does not violate the VRA. Although the court concluded that it “has no doubt that members of racial minorities have experienced discrimination in Washington’s criminal justice system,” it held that “Washington’s history, or lack thereof, of racial bias in its electoral process and in its decision to enact the felon disenfranchisement provisions, counterbalance the contemporary discriminatory effects that result from the day-to-day functioning of Washington’s criminal justice system.”

Plaintiffs have appealed the district court’s ruling and the case is again before the Ninth Circuit. On Decmeber 11, 2006 the Center filed its third amicus brief in the case. In this brief, we represented the National Black Police Association and20the National Lation Officers Association of America, as well as several prominent individual former law-enforcement officials, who share an interest inthe invalidation of felon disenfranchisement laws. We argued (1) that the Voting Rights Act permits and indeed requires reviewing courts to give serisou consideration to whether the policy justifications for a voting practice are tenuous, and (2) that the state of Washington serves no legitimate penal interest by disenfranchising otherwise qualified citizens who have been convicted of a felony, including tens of thousands of African-American, Latino, and Native American citizens.

For more information, visit NAACP LDF’s Farrakhan v. Gregoire webpage.

Rulings

 

 

Filings

 


Brennan Center Amicus Briefs

 

 

Brennan Center Related Documents

 

 

Related Court Documents

Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Voting Rights & Elections