Court Opinion

ID: 9458928
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:05:37.248187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:56.954003
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent.
I would affirm the order of the District Court which denied Dillenburg’s application for the convening of a three-judge court and dismissed his complaint.
Dillenburg was convicted of the felony of robbery in the King County Court on November 28, 1966 and was sentenced to 20 years in the state penitentiary, from which he was released on parole on May 4, 1970. He was not permitted to register to vote in Seattle because of his felony conviction and the fact that his civil rights had not been restored. Dillen-burg asserts that the Constitution and implementing statutes of the State of Washington which exclude him from the elective franchise as a person convicted of an infamous crime are unconstitutional. I agree with District Judge McGovern that no substantial constitutional question is presented.
From time immemorial felons have suffered such disabilities as the loss of voting rights, permanently or for a term of years, subject to restoration of rights or pardon. The state has a proper interest in imposing such disabilities on felons and its decision to do so has a rational basis, as elaborated by Judge Friendly in Green v. Board of Elections of the City of New York, 380 F.2d 445 (2 Cir. 1967) cert. den. 389 U.S. 1048, 88 S.Ct. 768, 19 L.Ed.2d 840 (1968). Thereafter, the Supreme Court at 396 U.S. 12 (1969) summarily affirmed Beacham v. Braterman, 300 F.Supp. 182 (1969) wherein a three-judge court held constitutional a similar exclusion of felons from the franchise by the Constitution and laws of Florida. Consequently, to ask two more judges to explore Dil-lenburg’s complaint about the State of Washington denying him the right to vote seems to me to be wholly unnecessary and unprofitable.