Opinion ID: 2832718
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Restoration of Walker’s Federal Civil Rights

Text: As the majority notes, Walker’s right to seek and hold federal office was never lost, and therefore has not been “restored.” See Logan, 552 U.S. at 31; U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995); Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969). That leaves two rights to consider—the right to serve on a federal jury and the right to vote in federal elections. Both rights have been “restored” to Walker according to “the word’s ordinary meaning” of returning something that had previously been taken away. See Logan, 552 U.S. at 31 & n.3.
The majority announces that it will “assume” for purposes of this case that Walker’s federal right to serve on a jury has been restored pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1865(b)(5). Maj. Op. at 1 The Supreme Court has implicitly approved relying on this triad of rights to test whether a felon’s civil rights have been restored. See Logan, 552 U.S. at 28 (“While § 921(a)(20) does not define the term ‘civil rights,’ courts have held, and petitioner agrees, that the civil rights relevant under the above-quoted provision are the rights to vote, hold office, and serve on a jury.”); Caron, 524 U.S. at 316 (1998) (“Restoration of the right to vote, the right to hold office, and the right to sit on a jury turns on so many complexities and nuances that state law is the most convenient source for definition.”). No. 14-5703 Walker v. United States Page 19 5. The majority’s squeamishness on this issue is difficult to understand—the majority identifies no reasonable alternative interpretation of § 1865 which would support any other conclusion, and it is impossible to identify what more could be required for Walker to meet that standard. The federal statute provides that a person shall be deemed “qualified to serve on grand and petit juries in the district court unless he . . . has been convicted in a State or Federal court of record of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year and his civil rights have not been restored.” § 1865(b)(5) (emphasis added). Because this language is nearly identical to the language in § 921(a)(20), the three civil rights identified in Cassidy—the right to vote, to hold office, and to serve on a jury—may properly be considered here as well. See Cassidy, 899 F.2d at 549; see also United States v. Green, 532 F. Supp. 2d 211, 212 (D. Mass. 2005) (holding that the term “civil rights” in § 1865 “plainly involves the right to vote, to serve on juries, to run for office”) (citing Cassidy, 899 F.2d at 549). If the measuring stick is state law—after all, 28 U.S.C. § 1865(b)(5) does not contain a choice of law clause like the one in 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)—then it is plain that Walker’s civil rights have been restored and he may again serve on a federal jury. The Tennessee state court order obtained by Walker restored to him all “civil and citizenship rights,” specifically including “the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury, and the right to hold an office of public trust.” (R. 1-1 at PageID 9-10.) Tennessee courts are authorized to restore “full rights of citizenship” under the procedure outlined in Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-29-101 to 40-29-105, and there is no dispute that the court-ordered restoration of Walker’s state civil rights was valid. See May v. Carlton, 245 S.W.3d 340, 344 (Tenn. 2008) (classing “serving as a juror” among the “rights of citizenship” affected by a conviction); Tenn. Code Ann. § 22-1-102 (providing that convicted felons lose their right to serve on a jury); State v. Black, 2002 WL 1364043, -12 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2002) (affirming the restoration under § 40-29-105 of the petitioner’s right to vote); Bryant v. Moore, 279 S.W.2d 517 (Tenn. 1955) (holding that the right to seek and hold public office was encompassed in the restoration of rights under substantially similar prior statutory language). To the extent Walker’s federal civil rights are relevant to § 1865(b)(5), his federal right to vote has been restored by operation of law as a result of the reinstatement of his voting rights under state law, U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 1; id. amend. XVII, and his right to seek and hold federal office is, as discussed above, unaffected by his felony conviction. Walker has thus met No. 14-5703 Walker v. United States Page 20 any conceivable requirement for the restoration of his right to serve on a federal jury. Applying the same plain-meaning interpretation that the Supreme Court gave the parallel provision in §921(a)(20), the right “had been taken away” from him as a consequence of his felony conviction under § 1865(b)(5), and it has been “give[n] back” under the terms of the same provision as a consequence of the restoration of his civil rights under state law. See Logan, 552 U.S. at 31 & n. 3.
The majority acknowledges that, by virtue of the restoration of his right to vote under Tennessee law, Walker has regained his right to vote in federal elections. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 1; id. amend. XVII (adopting state law qualifications for the right to vote in federal elections). This result flows from the constitutional design of our federal system: “[The states] define who are to vote for the popular branch of their own legislature, and the constitution of the United States says the same persons shall vote for members of congress in that state. It adopts the qualification thus furnished as the qualification of its own electors for members of congress.” Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 663 (1884); see also Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 379 (1963) (“States can within limits specify the qualifications of voters in both state and federal elections; the Constitution indeed makes voters’ qualifications rest on state law even in federal elections.”). Although the right to vote in federal elections incorporates voter qualifications set by state law, the right is indisputably a federal civil right, with “its foundation in the Constitution of the United States.” Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U.S. 58, 62-64 (1900); see also Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17 (1964); United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 310, 314-15 (1941). The majority does not dispute that Walker lost his right to vote under Tennessee law as a consequence of his federal felony conviction. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 2-2-102, 40-20-112, 4029-201. By operation of federal law, the loss of Walker’s state voting rights resulted in the loss of his federal voting rights. U.S. Const. art. 1, § 2, cl. 1; id. amend. XVII. Nor does the majority dispute that, by virtue of those same federal constitutional provisions, the restoration of Walker’s right to vote under state law has resulted in the reinstatement of his right to vote in federal elections. Id.; see Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-29-101, 40-29-105(b)(1), (b)(6) & (b)(7) (authorizing the reinstatement of citizenship rights, including the right to vote); see also State v. Johnson, 79 S.W.3d 522, 527 (Tenn. 2002) (discussing the restoration of rights scheme created by No. 14-5703 Walker v. United States Page 21 Tennessee statutes). These realities satisfy the plain meaning of the restoration of civil rights clause under § 921(a)(20): Walker’s right to vote in federal elections, secured to him by nothing less than the Constitution of the United States, was first taken away as a consequence of his felony, then subsequently reinstated under federal law which, by constitutional design, gives effect to the state law restoration of voting rights. Logan, 552 U.S. at 31 & n.3; see also Caron, 524 U.S. at 313 (holding that civil rights may be restored by operation of law alone). Walker’s federal civil right to vote has been “restored” within the common sense, ordinary meaning of the term. The majority takes the position that Walker’s federal civil right to vote has not been restored within what it terms a “fair reading” of § 921(a)(20). Maj. Op. at 10. This “fair reading” has one precarious source: the Supreme Court’s observation in Logan that the restoration of civil rights, like expungement and pardon, “extend[s] to an offender a measure of forgiveness,” while a felon whose civil rights were never lost “is simply left alone” and “receives no status-altering dispensation, no token of forgiveness from the government.” 552 U.S. at 26, 31. Seizing on the concept of a “token of forgiveness,” the majority insists that the law reinstating Walker’s federal right to vote must do so out of an explicit federal judgment either “regarding his conviction in particular or the voting rights of felons in general.” Maj. Op. at 8. Logan cannot be stretched to this extreme. Indeed, the case affirmed the ordinary meaning of the word “restore” as the return of something that had been taken away—a requirement that has been met in Walker’s case. Though purporting to rely on Logan, the majority is in fact adding a new dimension to our well-established inquiry: a requirement that the federal government take an affirmative act to restore Walker’s voting rights, and that the affirmative act be explicitly targeted to addressing felons’ rights. This requirement is out of sync with the Supreme Court’s holding that restoration of rights may be accomplished by operation of law. See Caron, 524 U.S. at 313. Just as “[n]othing in the text of § 921(a)(20) requires a case-by-case decision to restore civil rights to this particular offender,” 524 U.S. at 313, nothing in the text of the statute requires an affirmative act, explicitly branded as a token of forgiveness, on the part of the convicting jurisdiction. Cf. § 921(a)(20) (providing, in passive voice, that “[a]ny conviction . . . for which a person . . . has had civil rights restored shall not be considered a conviction for purposes of this No. 14-5703 Walker v. United States Page 22 chapter”). Instead, the text directs us simply to look at whether Walker’s rights have been restored “in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the [criminal] proceedings were held.” § 921(a)(20); Beecham, 511 U.S. at 371, 374. The majority cannot deny that Walker’s right to vote under federal law has been restored within the ordinary meaning of the term—so in order to avoid a result it dislikes, it saddles the term “restore” with requirements relating to the form and the express purpose of the governing law which have no relation to the word itself, and no other support in the text of the statute. I have no dispute with the majority’s holding that the restoration of rights must be made with respect to a particular conviction, as the statute specifies. That requirement, however, is plainly met here, where the Tennessee state court determined that Walker should regain the state civil rights he lost as a result of his federal conviction. Consistent with principles of federalism, the constitutional provisions governing his right to vote in federal elections give federal effect to the state’s “measure of forgiveness” for his conviction. Logan, 552 U.S. at 26. 3. The Majority’s Purported “Fair Reading” of § 921(a)(20) The “fair reading” of § 921(a)(20) dictated by the majority is, in the final analysis, a deviation from the ordinary meaning of the text apparently rooted in the majority’s distaste for the prospect of reinstating a felon’s gun rights.52 Under a straightforward application of federal law, Walker’s right to vote in federal elections and his right to serve on a federal jury have both been restored—that is, returned to him after they were previously lost as a result of his federal conviction. See Logan, 552 U.S. at 31 & n. 3. Unable to gainsay this reality, the majority moves the goalposts—the restoration of his voting rights is not a satisfactory “restoration” because it resulted not from an affirmative act of forgiveness by the federal government, but only the automatic operation of law. 5 As support for its preferred policy outcome, the majority points to the annual appropriations ban prohibiting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms from acting on petitions for “relief from the disabilities imposed by Federal laws with respect to the acquisition . . . or possession of firearms.” 18 U.S.C. § 925(c). Although acknowledging that § 925(c) itself has no bearing on whether Walker’s federal civil rights have been restored, the majority cites to legislative history connected with the appropriations ban to assert that Congress believed that “‘those who commit felonies should not be allowed to have their right to own a firearm restored.’” Maj. Op. at 13 (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 104-183, at 15 (1995). Taken at face value, this line from the legislative history proves too much. Congress has never repealed § 921(a)(20), which operates to restore the firearm rights of some who have committed felonies, and it goes without saying that a statement in legislative history cannot negate a duly enacted statute. In context, moreover, it is clear that Congress was expressing a view related to allocation of resources in reference to the application procedure contained in § 925(c); in its words, “[t]here is no reason to spend the Governments’ [sic] time or taxpayer’s money to restore a convicted felon’s right to own a firearm.” H.R. Rep. No. 104-183, at 15 (1995). No. 14-5703 Walker v. United States Page 23 Having found a reason to disregard the restoration of Walker’s federal voting rights, the majority abandons the position of high-minded symbolism to insist on the literal import of the plural: the statute exempts only convictions for which civil rights, plural, have been restored, so the restoration of the single right the majority is willing to recognize cannot exempt Walker from the firearm disability. The majority explains that the plural matters because the restoration of a single right reflects less trust and forgiveness, less confidence that the felon “can function as a normal citizen in more than one institutional context.” Maj. Op. at 10. The federal government, of course, is not withholding any of Walker’s civil rights—all three of which he possesses today. Rather, federal law relies on Tennessee’s trust in Walker to restore not one, but two of his federal citizenship rights. Under § 1865(b)(5), because Tennessee has restored Walker’s state civil rights, federal law restores his right to serve on a federal jury. Similarly, under the constitutional provisions governing voter qualifications, because Tennessee has restored Walker’s right to vote in state elections, federal law restores his right to vote in federal elections.