Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Roy Harness, et al. v. Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 19-60632 · judgment August 24, 2022
Before the decision, about 1.6× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a petition filed soon after the judgment below, a Fifth Circuit decision below, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and down for a state or local-government respondent.
Question presented
Petitioners are African-American citizens of Mississippi who are disfranchised by a provision of Mississippi’s Constitution that was adopted in 1890 for the express purpose of “obstruct[ing] the exercise of the franchise by the negro race.” Ratliff v. Beale, 20 So. 865, 868 (Miss. 1896). This Court struck down a materially identical provision of Alabama’s 1901 constitution in Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222 (1985). Yet in this case, the Fifth Circuit, in a deeply divided en banc decision, upheld Mississippi’s 1890 disfranchisement provision on the ground that voters, in approving minor amendments to the provision in 1950 and 1968 that left most of the provision untouched and in its original form, cleansed the original provision of its racially discriminatory taint. The question presented is: Whether any amendment to a law originally adopted for an impermissible racially discriminatory purpose, no matter how minor the amendment and no matter the historical context, cleanses the law of its racist origins for Fourteenth Amendment purposes unless the party challenging the law can prove that the amendment itself was motivated by racial discrimination.
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Donald B. Verrilli Jr.
Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP
For respondent
Scott Grant Stewart
Mississippi Attorney General's Office
Case
Conference history
Distributed for 17 conferences
Amicus briefs
3 cert-stage
Argument & decision
Decided June 30, 2023.
Proceedings
- Jun 30 2023Petition DENIED. Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor joins, dissenting from the denial of certiorari. (Detached Opinion)
- Jun 29 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/29/2023.
- Jun 20 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/22/2023.
- Jun 12 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/15/2023.
- Jun 05 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/8/2023.
- May 30 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/1/2023.
- May 22 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/25/2023.
- May 15 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/18/2023.
- May 09 2023Rescheduled.
- May 08 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/11/2023.
- Apr 25 2023Rescheduled.
- Apr 24 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/28/2023.
- Apr 17 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/21/2023.
- Apr 17 2023Rescheduled.
- Apr 10 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/14/2023.
- Apr 10 2023Rescheduled.
- Mar 27 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/31/2023.
- Mar 27 2023Rescheduled.
- Mar 20 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/24/2023.
- Mar 20 2023Rescheduled.
- Mar 13 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/17/2023.
- Mar 13 2023Rescheduled.
- Feb 28 2023Rescheduled.
- Feb 27 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/3/2023.
- Feb 21 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/24/2023.
- Feb 21 2023Rescheduled.
- Feb 16 2023Rescheduled.
- Jan 18 2023DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/17/2023.
- Jan 17 2023Reply of petitioners Roy Harness, et al. filed. (Distributed)
- Jan 03 2023Brief of respondent Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State in opposition filed.
- Dec 02 2022Brief amici curiae of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and American Civil Liberties Union filed.
- Dec 02 2022Brief amici curiae of Dennis Hopkins, et al. filed.
- Dec 02 2022Brief amicus curiae of Campaign Legal Center filed.
- Nov 28 2022Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Roy Harness, et al.
- Nov 28 2022Blanket Consent filed by Respondent, Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State
- Nov 14 2022Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including January 3, 2023. See Rule 30.1.
- Nov 10 2022Motion to extend the time to file a response from December 2, 2022 to January 1, 2023, submitted to The Clerk.
- Oct 28 2022Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due December 2, 2022)