| Richardson v. Ramirez | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued January 15, 1974 Decided June 24, 1974 |
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| Full case name | Viola N. Richardson v. Abran Ramirez et al. | |||||
| Citations | 418 U.S. 24 (more) 94 S. Ct. 2655, 41 L. Ed. 2d 551 |
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| Prior history | Ramirez v. Brown, 9 Cal.3d 199 (1973). Appeal from the Supreme Court of California | |||||
| Subsequent history | Ramirez v. Brown, 12 Cal. 3d 912 (Cal. 1974) | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| Convicted felons may be constitutionally disenfranchised. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Rehnquist, joined by Burger, Stewart, White, Blackmun, Powell | |||||
| Dissent | Douglas | |||||
| Dissent | Marshall, joined by Brennan, Douglas | |||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV | ||||||
Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974), held that convicted felons could be barred from voting without violating the Fourteenth Amendment.
Contents |
Plaintiffs, who had been convicted of felonies and had completed their sentences, brought a class action against California’s Secretary of State and election officials, challenging a state constitutional provision and statutes that permanently disfranchised 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. The California Supreme Court 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 disfranchisement laws serve a compelling state interest.
The Court pointed to Section 2 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which exempted felony disfranchisement laws from the heightened scrutiny given to other restrictions on the right to vote. The Court said that Section 2, which reduces a state’s representation in Congress if the state has denied the right to vote for any reason “except for participation in rebellion, or other crime,” distinguishes felony disfranchisement from other forms of voting restrictions, which must be narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests in order to be constitutional. [1]
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