In a sharply worded ruling, Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida said a clemency board with “unfettered discretion in restoring voting rights” violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Walker blasted Florida’s process at length, writing that it makes felons “kowtow” to a board that can accept or deny their application for any reason.
“A person convicted of a crime may have long ago exited the prison cell and completed probation. Her voting rights, however, remain locked in a dark crypt,” Walker wrote. “Only the state has the key — but the state has swallowed it. Only when the state has digested and passed that key in the unforeseeable future, maybe in five years, maybe in 50, … does the state, in an ‘act of mercy’ unlock the former felon’s voting rights from its hiding place.”
