Mississippi
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
The case concerns the constitutionality of a Mississippi law prohibiting abortions after the fifteenth week of pregnancy. The state used the case as a vehicle to ask the Supreme Court to take away the federal constitutional right to abortion it first recognized 50 years before in Roe v. Wade. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States accepted the state’s invitation and overturned Roe eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion.
Status: Closed (Judgment)
View Case
Visit ACLU of Mississippi
Featured
Mississippi
Mar 2017
Smart Justice
Prisoners' Rights
Dockery v. Hall
The ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Law Offices of Elizabeth Alexander, and the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP, filed a petition for class certification and expert reports for a federal lawsuit on behalf of prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF). The lawsuit, which was filed in May 2013, describes the for-profit prison as hyper-violent, grotesquely filthy and dangerous. EMCF is operated “in a perpetual state of crisis” where prisoners are at “grave risk of death and loss of limbs.” The facility, located in Meridian, Mississippi, is supposed to provide intensive treatment to the state’s prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities, many of whom are locked down in long-term solitary confinement.
All Cases
24 Mississippi Cases
Mississippi
Aug 2024
Voting Rights
Disability Rights Mississippi v. Fitch
A law passed in 2023 significantly diminishes access to the ballot for Mississippians with disabilities by restricting who may return an absentee ballot for a voter to only a narrow category of assistors. We’re suing to block this law.
Explore case
Mississippi
Aug 2024
Voting Rights
Disability Rights Mississippi v. Fitch
A law passed in 2023 significantly diminishes access to the ballot for Mississippians with disabilities by restricting who may return an absentee ballot for a voter to only a narrow category of assistors. We’re suing to block this law.
U.S. Supreme Court
Jul 2024
Capital Punishment
Galloway v. Mississippi
In Galloway v. Mississippi, the ACLU represents a man on Mississippi’s death row whose trial attorneys relied on a mere twenty-two-page presentation in support of a life sentence, without first conducting the background investigation that would have enabled them to make informed decisions about what evidence to present. A constitutionally adequate investigation would have uncovered voluminous mitigating evidence that could have caused the jury to decide for life instead of death. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected Mr. Galloway’s claim by speculating that trial counsel had an alternative “strategy” that precluded their doing a full presentation of the abuse he suffered as a child and his mental disabilities—even though Mr. Galloway’s lawyers asserted no such strategic judgment.
Explore case
U.S. Supreme Court
Jul 2024
Capital Punishment
Galloway v. Mississippi
In Galloway v. Mississippi, the ACLU represents a man on Mississippi’s death row whose trial attorneys relied on a mere twenty-two-page presentation in support of a life sentence, without first conducting the background investigation that would have enabled them to make informed decisions about what evidence to present. A constitutionally adequate investigation would have uncovered voluminous mitigating evidence that could have caused the jury to decide for life instead of death. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected Mr. Galloway’s claim by speculating that trial counsel had an alternative “strategy” that precluded their doing a full presentation of the abuse he suffered as a child and his mental disabilities—even though Mr. Galloway’s lawyers asserted no such strategic judgment.
Mississippi
Jul 2024
Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment.
Explore case
Mississippi
Jul 2024
Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment.
Mississippi Supreme Court
May 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Love v. State
This case in the Mississippi Supreme Court is a post-conviction appeal of a pro se defendant, Mr. Soweto Love, who argued that his guilty plea was not entered knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Mississippi, filed an amicus brief arguing that the law is on Mr. Love’s side, but urging the Court to exercise its discretion to inform Mr. Love that a win could resuscitate his charge and expose him to longer sentences.
Explore case
Mississippi Supreme Court
May 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Love v. State
This case in the Mississippi Supreme Court is a post-conviction appeal of a pro se defendant, Mr. Soweto Love, who argued that his guilty plea was not entered knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Mississippi, filed an amicus brief arguing that the law is on Mr. Love’s side, but urging the Court to exercise its discretion to inform Mr. Love that a win could resuscitate his charge and expose him to longer sentences.
Mississippi
Dec 2023
Voting Rights
Hopkins v. Watson (Amicus)
Mississippi is home to one of the strictest felon disenfranchisement schemes in the nation. The Mississippi Constitution permanently disenfranchises citizens upon a single felony conviction for certain crimes, including minor offenses like writing a bad check. As a result, the loss of rights under Mississippi’s scheme is mandatory, permanent, and effectively irrevocable. In Hopkins, plaintiffs, a class of formerly incarcerated individuals who lost their right to vote despite completing their sentences, argued that their disenfranchisement violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor and struck down Mississippi’s disenfranchisement scheme as cruel and unusual punishment. But the Fifth Circuit decided to rehear the case en banc, a rare occurrence in which a case is reconsidered by the entire panel of the circuit’s active judges.
Explore case
Mississippi
Dec 2023
Voting Rights
Hopkins v. Watson (Amicus)
Mississippi is home to one of the strictest felon disenfranchisement schemes in the nation. The Mississippi Constitution permanently disenfranchises citizens upon a single felony conviction for certain crimes, including minor offenses like writing a bad check. As a result, the loss of rights under Mississippi’s scheme is mandatory, permanent, and effectively irrevocable. In Hopkins, plaintiffs, a class of formerly incarcerated individuals who lost their right to vote despite completing their sentences, argued that their disenfranchisement violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor and struck down Mississippi’s disenfranchisement scheme as cruel and unusual punishment. But the Fifth Circuit decided to rehear the case en banc, a rare occurrence in which a case is reconsidered by the entire panel of the circuit’s active judges.