The DeSantis administration, relying on the shifting politics of the courts, appealed. It requested that the 11th Circuit consider the appeal en banc — that is, that it be heard by
The appeals court granted the state’s request, which proved hugely consequential: A previous three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit had unanimously sided with the former felons in February after they requested a temporary injunction to keep the Florida law from taking effect. But two of those judges have senior status, which excluded them from the en banc hearing. So the former felons lost two friendly judges and instead faced 10 jurists, five appointed by Mr. Trump, who were not bound by the previous panel’s earlier decision.
Instead of granting a permanent injunction, as Judge Hinkle had at trial, the majority of the en banc appeals judges — including all five Trump nominees — ruled 6 to 4 that the lower court judge had misapplied the law.
Requiring former felons to pay back every court cost “promotes full rehabilitation of returning citizens and ensures full satisfaction of the punishment imposed for the crimes by which felons forfeited the right to vote,” Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr. wrote for the majority.
Julie Ebenstein, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project and one the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the case, said justice should have nothing to do with the ability to pay fines and fees.
“The idea that they are somehow insufficiently rehabilitated because they aren’t wealthy, that just struck me as absurd,” she said.
The appeals court also ruled that Florida did not have to create a uniform system for former felons to know if they owe any court debt, a conclusion that struck Justin Levitt, a voting law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Obama administration, as wrongheaded.