Legal experts baffled by sentence for registering to vote
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Some legal experts view as excessive and baffling the six-year prison sentence given to a Tennessee activist convicted of illegally registering to vote while on probation.
Pamela Moses was convicted in November and sentenced to six years and a day on Jan. 31 by Shelby County Criminal Court Judge W. Mark Ward. The judge told Moses that he would consider placing her on probation after nine months if she completes certain prison programs and maintains good behavior, the district attorney's office in Memphis said in a news release.
Moses, who is Black, was convicted of multiple felonies and placed on probation in 2015, but she thought she was eligible to vote and tried to register in 2019. Some legal experts say the sentence illustrates the depth of the challenges faced by convicted felons when they try to have their voting rights restored and pointing out racial factors involved in the case.
David Becker, a former attorney in the voting section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said there is a movement among both conservatives and liberals to change “punitive and restrictive laws" that effectively disenfranchise people who have committed felonies but are not incarcerated and seek to return to society by exercising their right to vote. Many states are moving toward extending voter eligibility to such people, he said.
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