San Quentin News

Written By Inmates - Advancing Social Justice

Florida can’t use restitution or fines to stop ex-felons from voting

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By Kerry Rudd, Journalism Guild Writer

A federal court ruled that Florida cannot deny felons the right to vote based on their inability to pay fines or restitution.

“In his order, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida halted the implementation of SB 7066, which required felons to pay all restitution, fines and fees before they are eligible to vote,” reported Courthousenews.com on Oct. 18.

Months after Amendment 4 passed via landslide vote, state lawmakers passed SB 7066.

Amendment 4 is a constitutional amendment that restores voting rights to most felons once they have completed the terms of their sentences. That includes probation and parole. Restitution and fines are not mentioned in the amendment.

Judge Hinkle’s ruling only applies to the 17 plaintiffs in the case. The judge suggested Florida implement a system for felons to prove that they are unable to pay.

“When a state wrongly prevents an eligible citizen from voting, the harm to the citizen is irreparable,” Judge Hinkle’s written order said.

The court’s ruling leaves approximately 1.4 million felons without relief.

“Each of these plaintiffs have a constitutional right to vote so long as the state’s only reason for denying the vote is failure to pay an amount the plaintiff is genuinely unable to pay,” the judge wrote.

Florida’s Supreme Court is now reviewing the governor’s petition to define what “all terms of a sentence” means in the constitutional amendment. That court will analyze whether restitution and fines are implied in the language of Amendment 4.

Judge Hinkle also said the U.S. Constitution prohibits voting eligibility based on a person’s financial resources.

According to a study submitted to the court by University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith, almost 80% of felons have outstanding debts.

More than 2,000 felons registered to vote in Florida in the first three months after Amendment 4 took effect. And thousands more have registered since, advocates say.

Before Amendment 4, Florida was one of only three states with a lifetime ban on felon’s voting rights.

Florida DAs charge fentanyl dealers with murder in cases of overdose

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A woman overdosed and died in jail. As a result, another faces first-degree murder charges.

On Sept. 7, 2018, 24-year- old Jeniffer Patrick was riding in a car with her 49-year-old boyfriend when they were stopped by Marion County sheriff deputies, who found drugs and syringes in the car.

Patrick was arrested and booked into the Marion County Jail in Ocola, Fla., where she was then strip-searched and placed in a holding tank with other women.

This is where she came across 22-year-old Lorraine Gardner who had been in custody since July 2 on a probation violation stemming from three drug charges for MDMA, cocaine and methamphetamine, according to The Appeal, a non-profit criminal justice news outlet.

According to the Marion County sheriff’s department, video shows Patrick handing something to Gardner, who then put it to her face. Soon after, she began to show signs of physical distress.

Later footage shows something falling out of Patrick’s pants: a small baggie containing a tan mixture. The substance was tested and was revealed to be 2.5 grams containing fentanyl.

In November, Patrick was charged with first-degree murder. The murder charges against Patrick are a part of a push to treat fatal overdoses as homicides.

In June 2017, Florida passed a fentanyl trafficking law that increased penalties for dealers, including first-degree murder charges in cases where a homicide results from a drug overdose.

Amy Berndt, the prosecutor in the case, said, “Basically, as long as we can prove that the person delivered the drug that caused the death—fentanyl, it’s first-degree murder.” She remains committed to putting Patrick in prison for the rest of her life, adding that small-time dealers are the problem.

Drug policy experts caution that these new harsher penalties will not save lives—in fact, the threat of more time in prison might increase the likelihood of a fatal overdose if family members, friends or other users hesitate to call authorities, Linsay LaSalle of the Drug Policy Alliance told The Appeal.

Simply, this acts as a deterrent to calling 911. Lawmakers stand firm stating they want to send a clear message to drug dealers in Florida. Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill and promised it would save lives.

Attorney General Pam Bondi seconded the notion that the law would protect Floridians from dangerous drug traffickers.

Families band together creating an alliance focused on protecting incarcerated loved ones

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Families and friends of prisoners in Florida are joining forces with advocacy groups to create a stronger voice to protect their loved ones’ rights against the state’s correctional institutions, according the Florida Times Union/ Jacksonville.com.

Two groups representing prisoner’s rights have focused on two main issues, sentencing reform and administrative policy. The groups have fostered a relationship with families of the incarcerated, getting families organized to participate in the process, to ensure their legacies will include the ability to lead the fight of the incarcerated.

“Visitation is one of those issues that is uniquely understood by the families of the people who are incarcerated. You almost have to be in that position to understand its importance.” said Greg Newburn, state policy director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM).

That group partnered with Florida Cares, a nonprofit inmate advocacy group that has compiled a vast network of people who never envisioned getting involved with the issues of prison. This network, which includes lawyers, nurses, doctors, teachers, EMTs, firefighters and politicians, enables family members of the incarcerated to have one unified voice.

Denise Rock, who has led Florida Cares for two years, has created that voice for incarcerated people and their families, which now positions them as a group with political power.

Rock, a former paralegal and criminal defense investigator stated, “The people who had loved ones who are incarcerated, they want to help and they want to get in there and do something, but they don’t know what to do.”

Rock’s group has successfully challenged proposed rule changes by giving the loved ones a platform to voice their objections.

Concurrently, FAMM, a foundational criminal justice reform group that brings years of political experience to influence state capitals, such as Tallahassee, Fla., took notice of Florida Cares.

Newburn recognized the need to meld the two political activist groups together to ad- dress current issues of reform and to organize a long-term strategy. “What we’ve come to understand is those two issues are not separate…They are two sides of the same coin.”

An example of the partnership’s strength was seen last year. The groups represented families who objected to the proposed elimination of visits in Florida prisons. The effort prompted the prison system to abandon the change.

Denise Caffo, a board member of Florida Cares, said “Change is going to happen one way or another…The mindset is changing. We just can’t give up.”

Accidental overdoses prosecuted as felony-murder under new laws

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Two months after her fiancé’s funeral, Kimberly Elkins pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Elkins, now 49, used fentanyl to deal with chronic pain. One day, she shared a fentanyl patch with her fiancé, Aaron Rost, and they overdosed. She woke up that night, but he didn’t. She was sentenced to four years in prison in Minnesota for his death, according to the New York Times.
“I struggle really hard with this…trying to find my responsibility in it,” says Elkins as she sits in prison for sharing the fentanyl with him.
The cases are more common among drug abusers, but are not limited to them. Friends and family members who provided or sent the drugs to someone who overdoses and dies as a result can be arrested and charged for felony murder.
Mark S. Rubin, the Washington County attorney who pursued the case against
Elkins, compared overdose prosecutions to a fatal collision—even if they did not intend for the other to die, they are still responsible.
“We feel that constitutes a crime of possibly murder in the third degree, but at least manslaughter in the second degree,” Rubin said.
On Rost’s Facebook page there was a debate by family and friends about whether Elkins is responsible for the death of her fiancé, the New York Times said. Rost’s sister backed the prosecution of Elkins death.

“I struggle really hard with this…”

“How the hell can you sit and blame her for it all, considering whether she gave it to him or not, he still had the choice,” one friend wrote, calling Rost’s sister “heartless.”
Rost’s sister responded, “I’m heartless? I had to plan a funeral for a 36-year-old man.”

According to The New York Times, the whole notion of overdose homicide prosecution is based on the 1986 cocaine-related death of Len Bias, a one-time college basketball player on the road to going pro, who collapsed two days after he was drafted into the NBA by the Boston Celtics.
Bias’ friend was charged in the overdose-homicide, but was later acquitted of any wrongdoing. States started passing laws, nicknamed “Len Bias laws,” which were designed to prosecute drug dealers when the sale of drugs resulted in death.
Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, New York, and Pennsylvania have passed “Len Bias” laws to go after drug dealers. From 2015 to 2017, in the 15 states where the New York Times gathered most of its data, there were more than 1,000 cases like Elkin’s that involved accidental deaths. The charges against friends, family, and drug users in these cases ranged from manslaughter to murder.

Amnesty International urges death penalty repeal

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“Two wrongs don’t make a right. The death penalty is no way to impart justice,” says Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.
In 2016, the US Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida ruled that Florida’s capital sentencing law was unconstitutional. Yet, despite the ruling, Florida still has the second-largest death row in the nation and is fourth in the number of executions since 1976.
Amnesty International wants Florida to abolish their death penalty but it’s an uphill battle.
A new report released by Amnesty International, which focuses on three groups of death row inmates, shows that youth offenders and those with serious mental and intellectual disabilities are being taken advantage of by Florida’s capital sentencing laws.
The report calls into question the validity of executing those with serious mental illness, who are unfairly being labeled the “worst of the worst.” The report shows that prisoners with an intellectual disability, young adults with a mental maturity lower than that of an 18 year old, and those with a background of extreme deprivation and abuse, are at risk.

Amnesty’s goal is to convince Florida’s governor and his cabinet to commute the death sentences of all prisoners on death row.
Another problem the report reveals is how race influences who gets executed. Since 1976, not a single White person has been executed for killing a Black person. Whereas almost one fifth of the executions in this same time period involved Black defendants convicted of killing White victims.
Amnesty’s opposition to Florida’s death penalty is unconditional and absolute. Amnesty also wants Florida’s judges and juries to be made aware of a defendant’s mental health status and age before imposing the sentence of death.
Despite Amnesty’s urging, Florida remains a staunch believer in the death penalty. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Florida’s legislation has revised its death penalty statute so executions could resume. In fact, Florida’s Supreme Court has even made the retroactive effect of Hurst only available to a limited group of cases,
cutting off almost half of the 400 people on Florida’s death row from a new sentencing hearing.
Mathew Marshall is one such person. He was 24 when he was convicted of murder in 1988. Although the jury unanimously voted to sentence him to life in prison, the judge overruled the decision and sentenced him to death. “The USA must stop resorting to the ultimate cru- el, inhuman and degrading punishment, and join the 142 countries that are abolitionist in law or practice today,” says Erika Guevara Rosas for Amnesty International.

Florida hosts prison reform conference – FICPFM

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Photo by Dale Ramos

Tiffany Johnson speaking to the crowd


More than 50 social justice organizations led by formerly incarcerated people met in Orlando, Fla., last month. The occasion was the second national gathering of the Formerly Incarcerated, Convicted People & Families Movement ( FICPFM ). The first national gathering took place in Oakland in 2016.
By Andrew Beale Contributing Writer
The conference’s theme this year was “A Quest for Democracy,” and its location allowed attendees to pursue that quest by getting out the vote for Amendment Four, a ballot item that Floridians will vote on directly in the November election [Note: it passed with a 64.5 majority vote–it needed 60%]. Florida is one of only three states that permanently denies the right to vote to everyone convicted of a felony, and Amendment Four would restore the right to vote to most of those people, giving 1.4 million Floridians their voting rights back.
The conference drew around 1,000 people, almost all of them system-impacted in some way, whether formerly incarcerated themselves or family members of formerly and currently incarcerated people. Asha Bandele, one of the hosts of the conference, said the FICPFM is unique among criminal-justice re- form movements because it is led by people who are directly affected by the criminal- justice system.
“As somebody who worked in funding, I saw the majority of criminal justice dollars be handed over to people who were not directly impacted. That would never be the case in any other movement,” she said. “You’re not going to organize the largest movement you need if you don’t have people who are directly impacted, because nobody else is going to have skin in the game.”
Photo by Dale Ramos

Kenneth Glasgow (in blue) showing support with speaker TIffany Johnson


The conference featured an array of groups working on different aspects of criminal-justice reform, from family visitation to banning the box (prohibiting employers from asking about previous felony convictions on job applications). Groups representing formerly incarcerated women, LGBTQIA+ people and undocumented immigrants shared ideas and strategies at the conference.
On the second day of the conference, organizers bused attendees to a local community center, where they phone banked, sent mass text messages and went door-to-door asking people to vote yes on the amendment. Conference organizers said participants contacted over 80,000 voters in less than four hours.
Photo by Dale Ramos

Left: Author Luis Rodriguez and Barrios Unido Exec. Director Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez at he conference


Desmond Meade, the executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, has been instrumental in getting Amendment Four on the ballot. Meade, who is formerly incarcerated, said his wife ran for office last election cycle, and he wasn’t allowed to vote for her because of his felony conviction. He said that although he could move to another state in order to get his right to vote, he doesn’t believe people should have to move to gain their rights in 21st-century America. His conviction to stay in Florida and fight for voting rights for all Floridians was reinforced during a plane ride several years ago.

“What we know is that victims become offenders. Victims become perpetrators”

“When I looked out of the plane, I said somewhere down there’s an imaginary line that divides Florida from Georgia. And it reminds me of the days of slavery when all a slave had to do was cross an imaginary line to get to freedom,” Meade said. “And I said there is no way in Hell in the 2000s should any American citizen have to es- cape another state to experience their freedom and their democracy.”

Kenneth Glasgow, of The Ordinary People’s Society (TOPS), registered voters inside Alabama jails leading up to last year’s special election in which Democrat Doug Jones beat Republican Roy Moore. Glasgow said that his group registered more people inside the jails than the total number of votes that Jones beat Moore by, meaning that if most of the people TOPS registered voted for Jones, his group’s efforts changed the outcome of the election.

Photo by Dale Ramos

Kenneth Glasgow (in blue) showing support with speaker TIffany Johnson


But Glasgow said he has paid a price for his efforts. He is currently facing a capital murder charge in Alabama in the shooting death of Alabama resident Breunia Jennings. Glasgow is not accused of pulling the trigger but rather of giving a ride to the man who shot Jennings. Similar to the former law in California (which was recently amended by SB 1437), anyone found guilty of “aid- ing and abetting” a crime is just as guilty as the person who committed the crime. Glasgow maintains that he had no idea the man he gave a ride to was planning to kill Jennings, and the judge over- seeing the case told prosecutors he didn’t understand why Glasgow should be charged with a crime.

Other groups and individuals at the conference focused on topics such as over- coming childhood trauma in order to break out of a cycle of violence.
Eddie Grijalva, a licensed clinical therapist with Son Life Ministries in Tucson, Az., said childhood trauma is a major factor in illegal and violent behavior and must be addressed as part of any comprehensive criminal-justice reform measure.
“What we know is that victims become offenders. Victims become perpetrators. And hurt people hurt people,” he said. “People act out what they haven’t learned how to say… if you step back and say what are they really trying to say? What’s really going through their mind, or their feelings right now? And then we begin to see behaviors differently.”
Grijalva and his wife, Lori, are both formerly incarcerated, and the criminal-justice system has impacted the next generation of their family, as well. Lori Grijalva said famly members of incarcerated people are critical for building and shaping a movement like the FICPFM.

Photo by Dale Ramos

Host Asha Bandele


“When we went to prison, my oldest daughter had our kids, and when she went to prison, we had her kids. So it’s a family issue,” she said. “We’re the ones that live through it. The kids are the ones that live through it.”
LaTonya Tate was a conference attendee who has received a Soros Justice Fellowship to complete a comparative study of probation and parole practices in Alabama and other states. She has seen the criminal-justice system from two perspectives, as a former parole officer and the mother of a son who was incarcerated.

“The families are the first line of defense, you know, because when a person gets incarcerated…the family suffers. We’re incarcerated as well,” she said. “We’re the person’s advocate. We can advocate better because we need help. We need healing ourselves… it’s very important to include the family members in any movement because we need their support.”
Tate said one of the main benefits of having so many people from diverse organizations together at the same conference is the ability to share knowledge and form relationships.
Photo by Dale Ramos

Dorsey Nunn speaking


Dorsey Nunn, the founder of the San Francisco-based nonprofit All of Us Or None and a member of the FICPFM steering committee, said the movement has a broader goal beyond prison reform or voting rights for formerly incarcerated people.
Nunn’s story serves as an inspiration for the formerly incarcerated people he works with at All of Us Or None and its sister organization, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. After a stretch of incarceration at San Quentin State Prison in the 1980s, Nunn was able to build a nationally recognized social justice organization. He now fights for the rights of other currently and formerly incarcerated people. In 2015, he and other FICPFM members were invited to speak to President Obama, and Nunn credits that meeting with Obama’s later sup- port for nationwide ban the box measures, including a rule prohibiting the federal government from asking prospective employees about their incarceration record.

“You know, I’m one of those people that can actually tell you I walked through the gates of San Quentin and the gates of the White House,” he said.

Photo by Dale Ramos

The Young People’s Caucus facilitated by Manuel la Fontaine, Community Justice Network for Youth, (CJNY) and W. Haywood Burns Institute


Photo by Dale Ramos

Tiffany Johnson speaking to the crowd


Photo by Dale Ramos

Captive audience listening to Rev. Nixon speak


By Andrew Beale Contributing Writer

 
 

Unite the People ballot initiative

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) aids programs

Project Avary march

Project Rebound expands

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

News briefs October 2018 Tennessee, Georgia, Texas…

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1. Tennessee –A lawsuit raises inadequate treatment for claims diabetic inmates as well as claims of under-staffing since the private prison firm, CoreCivic Inc., opened Trousdale Turner Correctional Facility in 2015. Last year an audit reported that gangs run rampant in Trousdale because of insufficient security, according to the Nashville Tennessean. Understaffing is also key to the diabetes lawsuit, alleging that Trousdale goes on lockdown for weeks at a time — causing diabetic treatment to become worse.
2. Georgia –A federal court has ruled that private prison firm CoreCivic Inc. can be held liable for forcing detained immigrants to work for as little as $1 a day to clean, cook and maintain a prison it operates, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports. Detainees who refuse to work are threatened with solitary confinement and the loss of access to basic necessities, like food, cloth- ing, products for personal hygiene, and phone calls to loved ones, in violation of federal anti-trafficking laws, according to the law- suit.
3.1 Austin, Tex. – Lewis Conway Jr. is the first formerly incarcerated person in Texas to run for public office, reports Spectrum News Staff.
3.2 Atlanta– Two years into litigation about prisoners who spend years in solitary confinement in Special Management Unit onto the streets and to restrict the department’s overuse of solitary confinement for people with serious mental illness,” reports Courthouse News Service. The July 31 letter quotes expert witness Craig Haney as calling Georgia’s solitary confinement system one of the most draconian in the nation.

4. Jackson, Miss. — Prisoners represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Poverty Law Center claim that a privately run prison is so unsanitary, unhealthy and unsafe that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, reports The Associated Press. The allegations prompted a federal judge to order an expert to re-examine the prison.

5. Montgomery, Ala. – Corrections officials say 51 of the state’s 180 inmates on Death Row have chosen nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method after lawmakers approved it as a choice, The Associated Press reports.
6. Florida – Broward County inmates with serious mental illnesses suffer unnecessarily, sometimes without treatment, in inhumane conditions, according to a recent report, accord- ing to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The 88-page report was part of federal monitoring of the county’s jails. The report reviewed care provided by the sheriff’s office, which oversees four jails.

7. Texas – Criminal justice and child protective services professionals told legislators that the Texas is severely lacking in treatment services to combat the opioid crisis and other substance use problems, the Statesman reports. Officials say there is a huge gap between individuals’ needs and the state’s ability to serve, with many people in rural areas often having to drive far distances to gain access to treatment.
8. Austin, Tex.–The state prison system considerably cut the cost of inmate calls home by more than 75 percent with a new phone contract more favorable to inmates and their families, the Houston Chronicle reports. Currently, instead of paying an average of 26 cents per minute, prisoners will pay 6 cents per minute no matter the destination of the call. Also, the limit on phone calls was increased from 20 minutes to 30 minutes.
9. Boston – The American Federation of Teachers is asking its union members to cut their exposure to investment firms that have directed millions of dollars into private prisons companies CoreCivic Inc. and GEO Group Inc., reports Reuters.
PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide.

Suit alleges GEO operates ‘deadliest immigration center’

Solitary Watch offers inmates photographs beyond a gray wall


http://sanquentinnews.com/pennsylvania-awards-325000-37-years-confinement/

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

Kentucky voting rights may change for ex-felons

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Kentucky’s practice of permanently stripping away the voting rights of citizens convicted of felonies may soon change, according to Attorney Ben Carter in an opinion-editorial in The Courier-Journal.
Currently three states, Florida, Kentucky and Iowa, permanently strip voting rights. Only Vermont and Maine do not strip voting rights at all. All the other states temporarily strip voting rights.
Twenty-six percent of voting-age Black Kentuckians cannot vote due to the combination of felony convictions and the state’s racially biased enforcement of drug laws.
“The War on Drugs has turned people struggling with addiction into felons all across the commonwealth,” Carter said.
In 1980, Kentucky had a voter disenfranchisement rate of 2.2 percent, which has increased to 9.1 percent today. Only Mississippi and Florida have higher rates of voter disenfranchisement.
A federal lawsuit in Florida may end that state’s extreme effort to disenfranchise former felons and provide a template for other states to follow. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued an injunction requiring Florida officials to replace the state’s unconstitutionally arbitrary system by April 26.
But, Florida’s governor appealed the judge’s decision. Florida and Kentucky’s systems of voter restoration are similar: both are at the discretion of the governor.
Walker’s decision did not tell the state exactly how to fix its broken system. However, the court required the Executive Clemency Board to “promulgate time constraints that are meaningful, specific and expeditious.”
The court cautioned the GOP-controlled board from ending the voter restoration scheme entirely. Earlier this year, the court concluded that Florida’s slow drip of vote-restorations violates the constitutionally guaranteed rights to associate and speak freely, and also violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
The lawsuit in Florida gives disenfranchised Kentuckians a map to defend against the state’s punitive and racist policy against convicted citizens who have served their time, Carter noted.
He said that the map points to a more sensible destination, one that recognizes that people convicted of felonies should be fully reintegrated into society.
“Felons today aren’t what felons used to be. Back in the good old days, you’d have to kill or seriously hurt someone, steal a bunch of stuff or try to rob someone to become a felon,” he said. “But, nowadays, stealing something worth $300 is a felony.”

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

Court Rules Voting Rights for Inmates Ruling Limited to Washington State

Lack of felons’ ability to vote strips away fundamental rights

In America Slaves Have No Voting Rights

United Nations Human Rights Committee Reviews U.S. Disenfranchisement Laws

California aims to restore the right to vote for felons

Florida Corrections considers replacing visits

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The Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) is considering limiting inmates’ visits, claiming that there is not enough funding to cover the amount of staff it takes to oversee jail visiting rooms.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the DOC in Florida is allowing a private contractor to implement a program that will charge inmates and their families a fee to have video phone calls to their families.

“In 1935 the Supreme Court declared that a prosecutors job is more than merely winning every case by racking up convictions; it also included seeing that justice is done.” “Pressing Pause on Marijuana Convictions” NYT Opinion July 30, 2018

That attempt has frustrated family members and caused great concern. According to the article, one woman whose husband is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence said, “They’re reducing our days so they can they can make money on video visitation.”
The woman, who the Tampa Bay Times identifies as Jewie Tryon, also said, “Money is what motivates these people.” Inmates who are in contact with their families through visits are less likely to want to get into more trouble in jail, according to the Times. According to DOC spokeswoman Michelle Gladys, the video calls are not meant to replace in-person visiting but, to supplement them. “We value in-person visitations, we absolutely do. But given our current [financial] situation, this is our best option for safety reasons,” Gladys expresses her concerns to families for their worries and offers assurance that things won’t change drastically.

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

Report Indicates Prison Visitation Reduces Violence and Recidivism

Florida’s prison commissary prices “highway robbery”

California aims to restore the right to vote for felons

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Initiate Justice member explains the Restore Democracy Act

Initiate Justice member explains the Restore Democracy Act

California is joining the nationwide trend aimed at restoring the right to vote to convicted felons.

A nonprofit called Initiate Justice is seeking support for the Restore Democracy Act, which would restore voting rights to everyone incarcerated and on parole in California. If it gets enough signatures to get on the ballot and is passed by the voters in this November’s election, it would restore voting rights to approximately 162,000 Californians, according to Initiate Justice founder Taina Vargas-Edmund.

The petition needs to obtain more than 585,407 signatures by April 17 to make the ballot.

“What people can do is encourage their loved ones on the outside to help us gather petition signatures and to contact initiatejustice.org so we can send them petition forms, on our website or email,” Vargas-Edmund said in an interview.

Voting rights vary from state to state. Some states impose lifetime bans unless pardoned by the governor, while others restore voting rights upon completion of parole or probation. Only Maine and Vermont allow voting for people serving state prison sentences. In California, people can vote in county jail while awaiting trial and on probation, but voting is taken away from those serving prison sentences or on parole.

Florida bars voting by released felons unless an Executive Clemency Board restores the right. Critics of Gov. Rick Scott say his whims influence the decisions, according to a Slate article by Mark Joseph Stern.

“The whole idea about restoring suffrage is to make sure people have a fair shot of getting back on their feet”

In Florida, an organization called Floridians for a Fair Democracy filed the Second Chance Voting Restoration Amendment to automatically restore voting rights to the formerly incarcerated upon completing probation or parole and paying any required restitution, according to the Slate article. The amendment excludes those convicted of murder or sex crimes, according to the article. The amendment qualified for the November 2018 ballot with 760,000 certified signatures.

A recent federal court decision may help restore voting rights to 1.7 million citizens, including one in five Blacks, even if the initiative measure isn’t passed by voters.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker found that the process for restoring voting rights under Scott violates the First Amendment right to free association and free expression.

Critics accused Scott of bias and say he restored voting rights only to those persons who had witnesses attest to their conservative principles.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on whether the First Amendment protects voting rights, Walker, in reaching his conclusion, cited two opinions by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, statements that strongly suggest the act of voting constitutes a form of protected expression under the First Amendment, according to the Slate article.

People at the voting booth

People at the voting booth

Mississippi has a lifetime ban on voting for those convicted of certain felonies unless restored by legislation or the governor.

The lifetime banned felonies include: arson, armed robbery, bigamy, bribery, embezzlement, extortion, felony bad check, felony shoplifting, forgery, larceny, murder, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, rape, receiving stolen property, robbery, theft, timber larceny, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, statutory rape, carjacking and larceny under lease or rental agreement.

A 2016 study conducted by the Sentencing Project found that 9.6 percent of Mississippi’s adult population is ineligible to vote.

Members of the Mississippi state house unanimously voted for the creation of a commission to study restoration of voting rights for those who have committed crimes, according to a Daily Journal article by Bobby Harrison.

“The whole idea about restoring suffrage is to make sure people have a fair shot of getting back on their feet,” said Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, a co-author of the Mississippi legislation, according to the Daily Journal. Taylor also said restoring voting rights would help felons who had served their time become responsible citizens.

The push to separate voting from a penalty for committing a crime is active in other states, too.

Virginia, which, like Florida, has a lifetime ban on voting for those convicted of crimes, has two amendments going to the voters to decide the issue. In the meantime, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to 173,000 former felons through individual pardons. Current Gov. Ralph Northam has reportedly vowed to reinstate voting rights to the formerly incarcerated as well.

In Louisiana, a lawsuit is underway challenging whether the definition “under a sentence of confinement” applies to those on parole or probation.

Restoring voting rights to all citizens in Florida alone might have affected the elections of George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

In America Slaves Have No Voting Rights

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