United States Second Circuit

In a Due Process and Equal Protection Clause challenge to New York's felon disenfranchisement laws, judgment on the pleadings for defendants is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs' amended complaint failed to allege any facts as to discriminatory intent behind the legislature's adoption of the state constitutional provision at issue; and 2) there was a rational basis for the statutes' distinction between felons sentenced to incarceration or serving parole and those sentenced to probation.

Appellate Information

• Argued 10/26/2007
• Decided 01/28/2010
• Published 01/28/2010

Judges

• STRAUB, Circuit Judge:, Before WALKER, STRAUB, and POOLER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Juan Cartagena (Risa Kaufman, Craig Acorn, Paul Keefe, on the brief), Community Service Society of New York, New York, NY; Theodore M. Shaw, John Payton, Norman J. Chachkin, Janai S. Nelson, Jenigh J. Garrett, Ryan P. Haygood, Debo P. Adegbile, Alaina C. Beverly, Kristen Clarke, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., New York, NY, on the brief; Joan P. Gibbs, Esmeralda Simmons, Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn, NY, on the brief; for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Benjamin N. Gutman, Assistant Solicitor General (Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, Michelle Aronowitz, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), State of New York, New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.