United States First Circuit

In a dispute involving the disenfranchisement of incarcerated felons and the Voting Rights Act, district court judgment is reversed in part and affirmed in part where: 1) plaintiffs' challenge to the statute should be dismissed as plaintiffs failed to state a claim under Voting Rights Act sec. 2, and it is clear from the language, history, and context of the Act that Congress never intended sec. 2 to prohibit the states from disenfranchising currently incarcerated felons; and 2) the court properly granted summary judgment on plaintiff's Ex Post Facto claim as the disputed state statute is a civil regulatory scheme.

Appellate Information

• Decided 07/31/2009
• Published 07/31/2009

Judges

• LYNCH, Chief Judge., Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA and BOUDIN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Kenneth W. Salinger, Assistant Attorney General, and Peter Sacks, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Martha Coakley, Attorney General of Massachusetts, was on brief for appellant/cross-appellee., Christopher P. Silva with whom Thomas H. Wintner, Gail E. Cornwall, and Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, LLP were on brief for appellee/cross-appellant.