Not Letting Felons Vote Damages Democracy for All Citizens

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat— Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—argues that disenfranchising felons, as most American states do in some way, does substantial harm to everyone in our democracy. Sarat praises a recent decision by a federal district court in Florida striking down a state law requiring people with serious criminal convictions to pay court fines and fees before they can register to vote, but he cautions that but much more needs to be done to ensure that those who commit serious crimes can exercise one of the essential rights of citizenship.

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Kondjoua v. Barr

Docket: 16-296

Opinion Date: May 28, 2020

Judge: Per Curiam

Areas of Law: Criminal Law, Immigration Law

Sexual assault in the third degree under CGS 53a-72a(a)(1) necessarily includes as an element the use or threatened use of violent force and thus categorically constitutes a crime of violence as defined in 18 U.S.C. 16(a). The Second Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's order of removal. The court declined to remand for the agency to consider in the first instance whether petitioner's conviction of Connecticut third-degree sexual assault is a crime of violence under the alternative definition in 18 U.S.C. 16(a), but rather considered that legal question de novo and held that it categorically satisfies that definition. The court vacated the petition and denied the pending motion for stay of removal as moot.