Washington
Supreme Court leaves in place Mississippi’s voting ban for people convicted of some crimes
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft.
The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal from Mississippi residents who have completed their sentences, but who have been unable to regain their right to vote.
The court’s action let stand a ruling by the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected the claim that permanent loss of voting rights amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws, the 5th circuit said.
Using different legal arguments, lawyers failed to get the Supreme Court to take up the felon disenfranchisement issue in 2023, over a dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Mississippi’s list of disqualifying crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose,” Jackson wrote.
No justice noted a dissent from Monday’s order.
Most of the people affected are disenfranchised for life because the state provides few options for restoring ballot access. Lawyers who brought the case to the court argued that the state is an outlier and its bar on voting is a vestige of segregation.
Authors of the state’s 1890 constitution based disenfranchisement on a list of crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit, the lawyers argued. But the state responded that the Supreme Court has previously made clear that states may refuse to deny the right to vote to people convicted of felonies.
About 38% of Mississippi residents are Black. Nearly 50,000 people were disenfranchised under the state’s felony voting ban between 1994 and 2017. More than 29,000 of them have completed their sentences, and about 58% of that group are Black, according to an expert who analyzed data for plaintiffs challenging the voting ban.
To regain voting rights in Mississippi, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. In recent years, legislators have restored voting rights for only a few people.
Washington
DOJ drops criminal proceedings against Trump co-defendants in classified records case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Wednesday abandoned all criminal proceedings against the two co-defendants of President Donald Trump in the Florida classified documents case, wiping out any legal peril the pair could have faced.
Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira were charged with conspiring with Trump to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of classified documents that the Republican took with him when he left the White House after his first term.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, in July, saying that the prosecutor who brought it, special counsel Jack Smith, had been illegally appointed by the Justice Department. Smith’s team ended its case against Trump after his November election win, citing longstanding department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
But its appeal of the dismissal of charges against Nauta and De Olivera remained pending. On Wednesday, prosecutors informed the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it had withdrawn the appeal, formally ending the case.
The Justice Department had previously committed to not making public Smith’s report on the classified documents investigation as long as proceedings remained ongoing against Nauta and De Oliveira.
But the Trump administration Justice Department is widely expected to keep the report permanently under wraps.
New York
President Trump appeals hush money conviction
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has appealed his hush money conviction, seeking to erase the verdict that made him the first person with a criminal record to win the office.
Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction last May on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The case, involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 Republican campaign, was the only one of his criminal cases to go to trial.
A notice of appeal starts the appeals process in New York. Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, will have a chance to respond in court papers.
Trump hired a new legal team from the firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP to handle the appeal, spearheaded by the firm’s co-chair Robert J. Giuffra Jr.
Giuffra and four other lawyers from his firm stepped in after the president tapped his two main defense lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, for top positions in his administration’s Justice Department.
Trump was sentenced Jan. 10 to what’s known as an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction on the books but sparing him jail, probation, a fine or other punishment.
The Republican had long vowed to appeal but couldn’t do so until he was sentenced.
The trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, previously rejected Trump’s requests to throw out the conviction on presidential immunity grounds and in light of his return to the White House.
A Manhattan jury convicted Trump last May of falsifying business records kept in his eponymous real estate empire.
While the specific charges were about checks and ledgers, the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise.
Prosecutors said Trump mislabeled payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen as legal fees in order to conceal what they really were: reimbursement for $130,000 that Cohen paid Daniels to keep quiet in the homestretch of Trump’s 2016 presidential run.
At the time, Daniels was considering going public with a claim that she and the married Trump had a 2006 sexual encounter. He says they never did.
Trump denied any wrongdoing. He and his attorneys said the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses.
Trump’s lawyers also argued that Trump wanted to squelch claims like Daniels’ to protect his family, not his campaign, from what he says were falsehoods.
Trump won’t be able to pardon himself. Trump’s case was tried in state court, but presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.
Supreme Court leaves in place Mississippi’s voting ban for people convicted of some crimes
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft.
The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal from Mississippi residents who have completed their sentences, but who have been unable to regain their right to vote.
The court’s action let stand a ruling by the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected the claim that permanent loss of voting rights amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws, the 5th circuit said.
Using different legal arguments, lawyers failed to get the Supreme Court to take up the felon disenfranchisement issue in 2023, over a dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Mississippi’s list of disqualifying crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose,” Jackson wrote.
No justice noted a dissent from Monday’s order.
Most of the people affected are disenfranchised for life because the state provides few options for restoring ballot access. Lawyers who brought the case to the court argued that the state is an outlier and its bar on voting is a vestige of segregation.
Authors of the state’s 1890 constitution based disenfranchisement on a list of crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit, the lawyers argued. But the state responded that the Supreme Court has previously made clear that states may refuse to deny the right to vote to people convicted of felonies.
About 38% of Mississippi residents are Black. Nearly 50,000 people were disenfranchised under the state’s felony voting ban between 1994 and 2017. More than 29,000 of them have completed their sentences, and about 58% of that group are Black, according to an expert who analyzed data for plaintiffs challenging the voting ban.
To regain voting rights in Mississippi, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. In recent years, legislators have restored voting rights for only a few people.
Washington
DOJ drops criminal proceedings against Trump co-defendants in classified records case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Wednesday abandoned all criminal proceedings against the two co-defendants of President Donald Trump in the Florida classified documents case, wiping out any legal peril the pair could have faced.
Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira were charged with conspiring with Trump to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of classified documents that the Republican took with him when he left the White House after his first term.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, in July, saying that the prosecutor who brought it, special counsel Jack Smith, had been illegally appointed by the Justice Department. Smith’s team ended its case against Trump after his November election win, citing longstanding department policy that says sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
But its appeal of the dismissal of charges against Nauta and De Olivera remained pending. On Wednesday, prosecutors informed the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it had withdrawn the appeal, formally ending the case.
The Justice Department had previously committed to not making public Smith’s report on the classified documents investigation as long as proceedings remained ongoing against Nauta and De Oliveira.
But the Trump administration Justice Department is widely expected to keep the report permanently under wraps.
New York
President Trump appeals hush money conviction
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has appealed his hush money conviction, seeking to erase the verdict that made him the first person with a criminal record to win the office.
Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction last May on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The case, involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 Republican campaign, was the only one of his criminal cases to go to trial.
A notice of appeal starts the appeals process in New York. Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, will have a chance to respond in court papers.
Trump hired a new legal team from the firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP to handle the appeal, spearheaded by the firm’s co-chair Robert J. Giuffra Jr.
Giuffra and four other lawyers from his firm stepped in after the president tapped his two main defense lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, for top positions in his administration’s Justice Department.
Trump was sentenced Jan. 10 to what’s known as an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction on the books but sparing him jail, probation, a fine or other punishment.
The Republican had long vowed to appeal but couldn’t do so until he was sentenced.
The trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, previously rejected Trump’s requests to throw out the conviction on presidential immunity grounds and in light of his return to the White House.
A Manhattan jury convicted Trump last May of falsifying business records kept in his eponymous real estate empire.
While the specific charges were about checks and ledgers, the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise.
Prosecutors said Trump mislabeled payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen as legal fees in order to conceal what they really were: reimbursement for $130,000 that Cohen paid Daniels to keep quiet in the homestretch of Trump’s 2016 presidential run.
At the time, Daniels was considering going public with a claim that she and the married Trump had a 2006 sexual encounter. He says they never did.
Trump denied any wrongdoing. He and his attorneys said the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses.
Trump’s lawyers also argued that Trump wanted to squelch claims like Daniels’ to protect his family, not his campaign, from what he says were falsehoods.
Trump won’t be able to pardon himself. Trump’s case was tried in state court, but presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes.
