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Welcome back.
As we have been following for
some time, Florida voters
in 2018, overwhelmingly
passed Amendment 4,
restoring voting
rights to most felons,
who have completed
serving their sentences.
In 2019, legislature tried
to undermine that amendment,
by requiring felons to also
pay all court ordered fees,
fines, costs, and restitution,
before being able to
cast ballots.
Last Sunday, a federal judge
ruled that the Republican-backed
law denied the poor
the right to vote,
and was therefore
unconstitutional.
Two weeks ago, we had
Julie Ebenstein on this show,
and she was the lead attorney
for the ACLU on this case.
We checked back in
with her this week,
after the ruling.
Governor DeSantis said this week
that he would be appealing the
decision that the state
would not accept this ruling,
that they would move
forward with the appeal.
Your reaction?
It's, we haven't
received an appeal yet,
but there was a preliminary
injunction in October,
and they appealed from that, and
it was affirmed unanimously by
a three judge panel
of the 11th Circuit,
so if they're, once we
receive a notice of appeal,
we'll respond accordingly,
but if they appeal again,
then we will take, we'll take it
up with the 11th Circuit again.
But I think the
concern would be,
if there's a series of
appeals before the 11th Circuit,
before the full
panel, then ultimately,
possible to the United
States Supreme Court,
that all they'll end up with
is a delaying tactic that could
keep people from being
able to register and vote
in this year's election.
Is that a concern?
That may or may not
be the objective,
but as of now, a federal court
has interpreted the Constitution
that this group of
people can vote,
and they can register
and vote right now.
As it goes forward on appeal,
there's no automatic stay with
District Courts' decisions.
The operative decision is the
one we just received this
past Sunday.
It's unconstitutional to prevent
people from voting on the
grounds of inability to pay, and
for amounts that are considered
poll taxes, that's how the
system will operate now.
People can go out and
register to vote right now,
so you know we expect if
this does go up under appeal,
that the appellate court
will likely move it quickly,
and we expect that only because
that's what they did the last
time around after the
preliminary injunction,
they gave us a very expedited
briefing and hearing schedule.
We still think that this will be
resolved through the appellate
process, well in time for
the 2020 general election,
but in the meantime,
the decision that we have
interpreting the meaning of the
Constitution is the decision in
place, and is the state
of the world right now,
so people can go
out and register.
People sometimes forget, you
actually are representing real
people, and when I say that, I
mean you have actually named
plaintiffs, people, individuals,
not just a large class of
people, but individuals who
you represented in this case.
They're thrilled
by the decision.
It's one of the, you know we've
all worked very hard on this
case, and it's one of the most
gratifying moments to call your
clients after you get a good
decision and tell them the
result that they've
all put time and energy,
and work, and hope
into for the past year,
so we have clients
like Betty Riddle,
you lost the right to vote when
she was convicted at the
age of 17.
She's now a great mother, and
she has never been able to vote,
until we brought this lawsuit.
We have another
client, Mark Mitchell,
he has also never
been able to vote,
because of a conviction
when he was a teenager,
and was able to cast his
first ballot in the primary,
and he's looking forward
to voting in November.
We have, we have 17
individuals who we know of,
whose stories we
presented to the courts,
who will now be able
to register and vote,
so that's really one of the most
satisfying parts of litigating
in things like this.