Griffin v. Pate

• Decision Date: 30 June 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15–1661.,15–1661.
• Citation: 884 N.W.2d 182
• Parties: Kelli Jo GRIFFIN, Appellant, v. Paul PATE, In His Official Capacities as the Secretary of State of Iowa, and Denise Fraise, In Her Official Capacities as the County Auditor of Lee County, Iowa, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

884 N.W.2d 182

Kelli Jo GRIFFIN, Appellant,

v.Paul PATE, In His Official Capacities as the Secretary of State of Iowa, and Denise Fraise, In Her Official Capacities as the County Auditor of Lee County, Iowa, Appellees.

No. 15–1661.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 30, 2016.

Rita Bettis of ACLU of Iowa Foundation, Des Moines, and Julie A. Ebenstein and Dale E. Ho of ACLU Foundation, Inc., New York, New York, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Jeffrey S. Thompson, Solicitor General, Meghan L. Gavin, Assistant Attorney General, and Michael Short, Lee County Attorney, for appellee.

Gary D. Dickey of Dickey & Campbell Law Firm, PLC, Des Moines, for amicus curiae Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald.

Coty R. Montag, Washington, D.C., John B. Whiston of Clinical Law Programs, University of Iowa, Iowa City, until withdrawal, and then John S. Allen of Clinical Law Programs, University of Iowa, Iowa City, and Christina A. Swarns, Angel S. Harris, and Joshua A. Rosenthal, New York, New York, for amicus curiae The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.

Alan R. Ostergren, Muscatine County Attorney, for amicus curiae Iowa County Attorneys Association.

Mark McCormick of Belin McCormick, P.C., Des Moines, Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, New York, New York, and Myrna Pérez of Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, New York, New York, for amicus curiae The Iowa League of Women Voters.

Gordon E. Allen, Johnston, for amicus curiae Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants.

Joseph C. Glazebrook of Glazebrook, Moe, & Hurd, LLP, Des Moines, for amicus curiae Iowa veterans.

Kristi L. Harshbarger, West Des Moines, for amicus curiae Iowa State Association of Counties.

CADY

, Chief Justice.

This appeal requires us to decide if the crime of delivery of a controlled substance is an “infamous crime” under the voter disqualification provision of the Iowa Constitution. The district court held the crime is an infamous crime, and a conviction thereof disqualifies persons from voting in Iowa. Following the analysis we have used in the past to interpret provisions of our constitution, we agree and affirm the judgment of the district court.

The term “infamous crime” was generally recognized to include felony crimes at the time our constitution was adopted. This meaning has not sufficiently changed or evolved to give rise to a different meaning today. In addition, unlike some past cases when we have interpreted provisions of our constitution, the facts and evidence of this case are insufficient to justify judicial recognition of a different meaning. Constrained, as we must be, by our role in government, we conclude our constitution permits persons convicted of a felony to be disqualified from voting in Iowa until pardoned or otherwise restored to the rights of citizenship. This conclusion is not to say the infamous-crime provision of our constitution would not accommodate a different meaning in the future. A different meaning, however, is not for us to determine in this case. A new definition will be up to the future evolution of our understanding of voter disqualification as a society, revealed through the voices of our democracy.

I. Background and Proceedings.

Kelli Jo Griffin is an Iowa resident. She is also a citizen of the United States. She is forty-two years old. Griffin engaged in criminal conduct that resulted in a 2008 conviction for the crime of delivery of 100 grams or less of cocaine in violation of Iowa Code section 124.401(1)(c)(2)(b) (2007)

, a class “C” felony. She was sentenced by the district court to a suspended term of incarceration and given five years' probation.¹ Griffin successfully discharged her sentence on January 7, 2013.

On November 5, 2013, Griffin registered to vote and cast a provisional ballot in a municipal election in Montrose, Iowa. Denise Fraise, the Lee County auditor, subsequently determined Griffin was not eligible to vote due to the 2008 felony conviction, and rejected her ballot. Griffin was charged and prosecuted with perjury for registering and voting in the November 5 election. She was acquitted of this crime following a jury trial.

On November 7, 2014, Griffin filed a petition in district court against the governor of Iowa, the secretary of state of Iowa, and county auditor Fraise. The petition asked the court to declare that her felony conviction did not disqualify her under the Iowa Constitution from voting, and it sought other relief in the form of an injunction and mandamus to recognize and protect her right to vote.

The district court dismissed the governor from the lawsuit, and the case proceeded to a summary judgment hearing. The court held Griffin had been disqualified from voting when she was convicted of a felony and further found the county auditor properly rejected her ballot. The district court rejected her claim that her particular felony conviction was not the type of conviction that disqualified a person from voting. It also rejected her claim that the process to restore voting rights violated her due process rights under the Iowa Constitution.

Griffin exercised her right to ask this court to review the decision of the district court. On appeal, she argues her felony conviction did not disqualify her under the constitution from the privileges of an elector and the voter registration laws that exclude convicted felons who have not had their rights restored from voting are invalid and constitute a violation of her due process rights. Her due process claim is dependent on her predicate argument that her felony conviction did not disqualify her from voting under the constitution.

II. Standard of Review.

Summary judgment rulings are reviewed for correction of errors at law. Baker v. City of Iowa City, 867 N.W.2d 44, 51 (Iowa 2015)

. If the only concern is the legal consequences of undisputed facts, we resolve the matter on summary judgment. Id. Constitutional challenges are reviewed de novo. Zaber v. City of Dubuque, 789 N.W.2d 634, 636 (Iowa 2010).

III. Right to Vote.

Voting has traditionally been viewed in our democratic society as a basic and fundamental right of citizenship. Chiodo v. Section 43.24 Panel,

846 N.W.2d 845, 848 (Iowa 2014) (plurality opinion). In our representative form of governing, it serves to give a voice to the people. Id. This voice is as important to the democracy as it is to those the democracy governs.

Our constitution establishes the right to vote, but not among those rights enumerated in our bill of rights. Iowa Const. arts. I–II. Our founders chose to address voting in a separate article of the constitution captioned as both a right and a privilege. Id. art. II, §§ 1

, 5. The view that voting is a privilege emanates from the constitutional limitations placed on electors. Id. §§ 4–5. Electors must be citizens of the United States and residents of Iowa. Id. §§ 1, 4. Additionally, otherwise-qualified electors can be disqualified from voting. Under our constitution, a “person adjudged mentally incompetent to vote or a person convicted of any infamous crime shall not be entitled to the privilege of an elector.” Id. § 5. Thus, voting exists as a fundamental right for people who meet the constitutional qualifications of an elector and are not disqualified by adjudication of incompetency or conviction of an infamous crime. Id. §§ 1, 5.

IV. Role of the Court.

The sole issue in this case is whether the felony crime of delivery of a controlled substance is an infamous crime. Under our system of governing, this issue is now a question for this court to decide. The legislature enacted a statute in 1994 defining an infamous crime as any felony. 1994 Iowa Acts ch. 1180, § 1 (codified at Iowa Code § 39.3(8)

(2013)).² Yet under our democracy, people have the right to challenge the constitutionality of a legislative enactment that directly affects them, and the judicial branch of government has the responsibility to decide the question. In Iowa, that responsibility ultimately falls to this court.

V. Analytical Framework.

Our task is to interpret our constitution to decide if it rendered Griffin ineligible to vote and, in turn, permitted the county auditor to reject her ballot. We must decide if the felony crime of delivery of a controlled substance is an infamous crime.

In Chiodo, we recognized we had never developed a comprehensive analysis to determine the meaning of the infamous-crime disqualification. 846 N.W.2d at 851

. It was unnecessary at that time, however, to conduct the in-depth analysis needed to articulate such a standard.³ The crime claimed to be infamous in Chiodo was a misdemeanor, and we were able to resolve the dispute under a standard that only went so far as to exclude misdemeanor crimes from the meaning of infamous crimes. Id. at 856–57. We understood the limited nature of the opinion and saved a more complete analysis for a later date. Id. at 857. Notwithstanding, the approach taken by the plurality opinion was not out of line with our careful approach in interpreting our constitution. We have often found it wise to take incremental steps in developing constitutional law.

In taking the next step forward today to develop a more complete framework to interpret the infamous-crime language, we are drawn to the approach historically taken by courts when called upon to interpret the meaning of constitutional phrases that necessarily embody social judgments that evolve over time. This approach has allowed courts, for example, to usher the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause from generation to generation as views of punishment evolve. See generally Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958)

(discussing the history and evolution of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution). The analysis starts with the understanding that the meanings of these constitutional doctrines are not necessarily static, and it instead considers current prevailing standards that draw their “meaning from the evolving standards ......