DeSantis files appeal of order allowing ex-felons to vote
TALLAHASSEE — Arguing that the case is of “exceptional importance,” lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis have made a rare move of asking a full appellate court to consider a challenge to a voting-rights ruling that would pave the way for hundreds of thousands of felons to cast ballots in the November elections.
Appeals in federal lawsuits are almost always initially heard by three-judge panels, whose decisions can be revisited later by the full court in what are known as “en banc” hearings.
But the DeSantis administration last week asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an initial hearing by the full court, due in part to a panel decision earlier in the case and because of the far-reaching nature of the lawsuit.
The request is “very, very unusual,” veteran electionslaw attorney Mark Herron, who represents Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley in the lawsuit, told The News Service of Florida on Wednesday. Earley is one of the defendants.
DeSantis’ lawyers made the filing after U.S. District
Judge Robert Hinkle in May ruled against the state in a battle over a 2019 law that was aimed at carrying out a constitutional amendment to restore the voting rights of felons “who have completed all terms of their sentences, including parole and probation.”
Hinkle’s May ruling came after he issued a preliminary-injunction decision in October that said part of the 2019 law requiring felons to pay “legal financial obligations” — fees, fines, costs and restitution — associated with their convictions was unconstitutional. A threejudge panel of the Atlantabased appeals court in February upheld the preliminary-injunction decision, which found that the state cannot deny the right to vote to felons who are “genuinely unable” to pay court-ordered financial obligations.
DeSantis requested an en banc rehearing on that decision, but the appeals court turned him down.
In the May ruling, Hinkle cemented his earlier decision by laying out a procedure for hundreds of thousands of Floridians who have been convicted of felonies and have court-ordered debts to be able to cast ballots in November.