JACKSON, Miss. — The League of Women Voters of the US, the League of Women Voters of Mississippi, the Mississippi Center for Justice, One Voice, Mississippi Votes, Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, Black Voters Matter, Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, Reaching and Educating for Community Hope (RECH) Foundation, Strong Arms of Mississippi, Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition, People’s Advocacy Institute, and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, filed an amicus brief late Wednesday in Hopkins v. Watkins, urging the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to declare Mississippi’s lifetime felony disenfranchisement law — Section 241 — cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. The groups are represented by pro bono attorneys Matthew Sloan, Lauren Aguiar, Shaud Tavakoli, Daniel Bleiberg, Andrew Karp, and Kathleen Shelton.
