Jackson Jambalaya

Why commit a crime if you care about rights!

So the Hinds County DA who is sworn to uphold the MS Constitution is going blatantly refuse to uphold the MS Constitution? And by his press release is calling on other DAs to follow his lead in not following the law?

How about working with the legislature to have this changed? No. I'll just refuse to follow the law and charge them with a lesser offense.

And people wonder why HB1020 was needed.

The Soros Circus finally arrives in Jackson.

While I agree with the basis of the statement I also agree that this needs to be addressed by our elected government. If not done that way, why do we even need them.

So, the 5th Cir case is the controlling law. Section 241 affects all persons (regardless of color, ethnicity, gender, sex, religion, etc.) such that is is NON-DISCRIMINATORY, yet Owens wants to claim that he can refuse to follow it by quoting Justice Jackson's dissent as though it is law. Her dissent?

@1:42PM - nope. You either didn't read Owen's statement or you lack the ability to comprehend it. The Legislature has been asked multiple times to change the law, and they've made very minor changes. The intent remains the same - to disenfranchise Black folks. Owen's statement makes it clear that he will charge, where available, on parallel charges. Your ACT score on reading comprehension must have been abysmal.

@ 1:49 PM Owen said he would abide by 241 unless a similar, non disenfranchising charge - a parallel one - was available. Your comprehension level is very poor.

Bill, I read the statement and comprehended it. My ACT score was just fine, but thanks for your interest. Your ad hominem attack on me doesn't change the validity of my post. In fact, you confirmed it. The legislature has made changes in the law. You assert they don't go far enough. Then work within the process to have it changed further. If the law is unconstitutional, there is a process to challenge it. Clearly, the 5th Circuit and a majority of the US Supreme Court didn't see it your, Owen's, or Justice Jackson's way.

"The intent remains the same - to disenfranchise Black folks."

So, there is evidence of white criminals being charged with similar felonies getting their voting rights back but no black criminals are?

"..and who has never been convicted of murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy, is declared to be a qualified elector..."

Failing to see where race is mentioned in Section 241. Looks like if you are a normal human being and don't commit the crimes specifically stated, you get to vote in the State of Mississippi. I'll be damned. Appears to be another case of the victim class trying to find something else to become "victims" over.

jody, work on getting them to court, so they can be charge and convicted of the felonies; then after they serve their time, working on voting right

Jody Owens......

"In other words, I will not charge you with murder, if I can charge you with a speeding ticket.

Although we do not know for sure why only two Justices dissented from the denial of cert, I suspect it was because the other Justices agreed with the Fifth Circuit that subsequent amendments to Section 241 ratified Section 241 without the animus that Justice Jackson correctly observed was the explicitly stated purpose of the 1890 convention. Her argument that the amendments were not ratifications did not persuade me.

I'd like to see it changed. For the benefit of us all, people who have done their time in prison should be integrated back into society as fully as possible, including voting. It seems that the courts may be moving toward overturning felon-in-possession laws for guns. It would be strange if felons have the right to possess a gun but not the right to vote.

In the meantime, though, the DA should prosecute using the law most applicable to the crime.

This SCOTUS term, 50% of decisions were unanimous. 89% had at least one liberal justice in the majority, and 8% were a 6-3 split along "ideological lines" (5 of 58).

Partisan court narratives are a bunch of hooey.

Can a Mississippi Governor do as Governor DeSantis did in Florida and remove a rogue prosecutor intent on endangering the public by releasing violent criminals on lesser charges?

This comes off as a threat of since I don’t agree with this, I’m gonna lessen crimes to misdemeanors when possible and send the criminals back out to freedom where they surely will go vote. Just Jackson/Hinds finding another way to screw itself by letting criminals out with a wrist slap. I’m sure this will work out great for you Owens. Pat your back for this genius plan.

Such contempt for equal treatment as Owens and other democrats harbor is founded in an implied belief that blacks are genetically & environmentally bent towards violence and crime, more than other races, thus must have a balancing thumb on their scale of justice.

Thoughtful blacks should be insulted.

Well, that explains why murderers are still on the streets in Jackson. They're getting charged according to their voting rights.

I dont know what charge they will end up with, but at least they will have a jury of their peers; if they can vote they can serve on a jury!

Soros (includes his kid) has Owens in his pocket. "Disenfranchisement, food deserts, undocumented, and housing insecurity," are all Marxist buzz words.

It's amazing how the progressive racists think they can simply dredge up history to create a racial issue no matter the current facts. So Jody says, "Over the past 130 years section 241 HAS BEEN used to prevent Black Americans and other minority..." Simply because black Americans are more likely today to be convicted of one of these crimes and suffer the consequences does not mean the consequences are directed towards black people any more than anybody else. Whites will get the same punishment. Won't they, especially in Hinds County? If blacks do the crime in lesser numbers they will suffer less of the consequences. Is that true or not? That was not true in 1890. But this is 2023 and you can choose your fate.

No all you numbskulls- the DA said a “parallel charge” or a charge of equivalence that would not affect ability to vote.

Jody is the worst DA in recent history. And I voted for him hoping for more. Rather than worry if they can vote, concentrate on prosecuting criminals.

Black and White citizens both commit felonies, the law applies and has been applied equally to both races. There is no discrimination here, just people who think they are special because of their skin color.

@3:28 That sounds nice, just like Jody's Press Release sounds "nice". But please tell me what those parallel charges could be?

The constitution contained 11 disenfranchising crimes (which by the way means it would take a constitutional amendment to change the law, not just an act of the legislature as many have suggested here); over the years, by AG Opinions the list has increased to 21 crimes.

But that's where the rub comes in. As crimes have become defined with specific characteristics that delineate them from others, those that are "parallel" to the original 11 have been determined to also be disenfanchising because they are the same crime as what is contained in the constitution.

Don't believe Jody is enough of a wordsmith to be able to find any "parallel" crimes that would allow him to do what he is trying to claim with this Soros concept. Murder is still murder; manslaughter (which is not disenfranchising) is not a parallel crime. Don't know that a speeding ticket would qualify either.

Frankly, this entire argument is one of little value - of the 21 disenfranchising crimes, there are only a small handful that folks have been convicted of and have lost their right to vote: murder, rape, theft. The others (bigamy, arson, bribery, etc) don't affect many of those who have lost their right to vote --- particularly if we don't consider our Scruggs family and friends --- so just what 'parallel" crime can be found for murder or rape?

Look forward to your response.

As I said in comment 1:37, why commit a crime if you care about your rights.

The majority of criminals could give a rats ass about voting!

This is just a smoke screen! Let’s work on getting these fools we have that committed crimes off the streets for good and let them vote in prison.

DA Owens go in the neighborhoods and get the people that have not committed a crime, and get them to vote!

Let the criminals know during court they they will loose their right to vote! Response, look at you sideways!!!

It isn't the District Attorney's job to protect voting rights. His job is to present charges to the Grand Jury, and to prosecute the indicted.

Do your f-ing job, Jody!!!

Hinds County justice

I'm okay with what Jody is doing here.

But it doesn't matter if the judiciary and the administrative back office can't get their jobs done.

Of course the Soros DA would rather perform judicial activism.

At this point Dems would rather mail ballots to currently incarcerated felons.

The President of the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention said: “Let us tell the truth if it bursts the bottom of the Universe . . . We came here to exclude the negro. Nothing short of this will answer.” N. McMillen, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim
Crow 41 (1989) (McMillen).

Progressive virtue signalling akin to the half-Mayor's repeated preenings.

Just pass a law that includes the same effect on voting rights for “parallel crimes.

Here we are, in the year of our LORD, 2023, and of all people, Bill Dees, is questioning someone's mental acuity. Who would have thunk it?

Election year pandering by virtue signallying.

Vote for Darla Palmer!

5:22: It is Jody Owens's job, nor his (gasp) place to fix the Mississippi Constitution, or correct for what some jackass said in 1890.

His job, as the prosecutor, is to prosecute crimes for a county that includes the city with the highest per-capita homicide rate in the country (by a wide margin) for at least the last two years. If Jody Owens wants to advocate for felons' voting rights, he needs to find a new job doing that.

Who gives a rats ass about voting when they are committing a crime! Now I’ve served my time, found religion and want to vote!

Don’t do the crime if you value what all you may lose if caught….

@1:45 PM

He is actually pretty tame to the radicals in Jackson and Hinds county. When the Soros prosecutor is the lesser radical, you’re in a very bad place. At least he’s not shouting down the mother of a murder victim.

We’ll just have ourselves a little election, then, and vote this Jody out of office. In our vibrant democracy it is elections that are the remedy for everything; right?

Buy more guns and ammo... when the elected official in charge of prosecuting criminals is more concerned with the restoration of the ability of convicted criminals to effect the electorate than with the incarceration of criminals, it is a sign of the end of our way of life.
Voter apathy is at an all time high, so the thought is not to allow the criminals to vote again, it's to destroy the system as it stands. Open the borders and dilute the electorate with non citizens..
on and on and on....

I'm sure half of the people whining about big bad Jackson or whatever do not even live in Hinds County anyway so it won't matter what you think when Jody is up for re-election. All you want to do is whine about "Marxism" and other bullshit so you can continue to be willfully obtuse and pretend Mississippi has never had a problem with discriminating against Black people. Get a hobby.

The DA wants you to believe the people committing these crimes actually vote, but if they lose their ability to vote then the democrats can't help him vote and harvest his ballot.