From today’s final order list of the term, this dissent from Justice Jackson from a cert denial in Harness v. Watson:

The President of the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention said it plain: “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.” To further that agenda, the Convention placed nine crimes in §241 of the State’s Constitution as bases for disenfranchisement, believing that more Black people would be convicted of those crimes than White people. See Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U. S. 213, 222–223 (1898) (acknowledging that purpose, but expressing “no concern” regarding the Conventioneers’ objective); Ratliff v. Beale, 74 Miss. 247, 265, 20 So. 865, 868 (1896) (similar); 47 F. 4th 296, 300 (CA5 2022) (per curiam) (en banc) (case below) (recognizing §241’s discriminatory aim).

Eight of those crimes have remained in §241 since 1890, without interruption. Thus, the Convention’s avowed goals continue to be realized via its chosen mechanism: Today (just as in the Convention’s aftermath), thousands of Black Mississippians cannot vote due to §241’s operation. Petitioners brought this legal action to challenge §241’s continued use of the eight crimes as bases for felon disenfranchisement. 47 F. 4th, at 302.

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit properly recognized that, under this Court’s settled precedent, the mere passage of time cannot insulate from constitutional challenge a law that was invidious at its inception. See id., at 300, 304. That court could not escape acknowledging the similarities between this case and Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U. S. 222 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., for the Court), in which this Court unanimously invalidated an Alabama constitutional provision passed in 1901 because its “enactment was motivated by a desire to discriminate against blacks on account of race” and it “continue[d] to th[at] day to have that effect.” Id., at 233. But en route to affirming the District Court’s grant of summary judgment against petitioners, the Fifth Circuit proceeded to make two egregious analytical errors that ought to be corrected….