Individuals with felony convictions who try to reenter society face multiple challenges in getting their rights of citizenship restored. In most states, a person’s right to vote is forfeited with a felony conviction, and the process of restoring that right differs dramatically from state to state. Further, new legislation and judicial interpretation of state laws can often complicate an already-challenging process.
The College of Law Legal Clinic, which has long been involved in helping clients navigate reentry after a conviction, has in recent years focused increasing attention on voting rights. Through its Voter Restoration Project, initiated in 2020 the clinic helps lead these efforts in Knoxville and throughout the state.
Process in Tennessee
Tennessee has stricter laws than most other states when it comes to the voting rights of individuals with felony convictions. For an individual whose felony conviction doesn’t permanently bar them from voting, Tennessee is one of the few states that still requires that they pay all conviction-related court costs and restitution and be current on child support payments before voting rights can be restored.
“Our clients can’t afford legal services,” says Joy Radice, director of clinical programs and associate professor of law. “They’re often trapped in a system where they not only have to serve a sentence for their crime, but they also face civil-collateral consequences, sometimes that are more lasting and difficult to overcome than their original sentence. One of those consequences is losing the right to vote.”
Before the summer of 2023, the process of voter restoration in Tennessee was administrative, requiring a Certificate of Restoration (COR) to be filed.
“The process wasn’t easy, but it did not involve filing a court pleading,” Radice says. “It involved filling out a form with the help of probation or parole that we would then submit to the local administrator of elections, who would work with the coordinator of elections’ office to restore the person’s right to vote.”
Joining forces
Then in July 2023, in response to the Tennessee Supreme Court’s recent decision in Falls v. Goins, the coordinator of elections announced that before applicants can submit the COR, they must either get an official pardon or petition the circuit court to have their full rights of citizenship restored. Filing in court requires a completed petition, a filing fee, supporting certified documents, affidavits, and statements, and in many cases a hearing with witness testimony – this can be an intimidating obstacle to overcome.
The approach of the 2024 presidential election prompted a statewide collaboration of legal aid groups and pro bono lawyers to work on this voter restoration issue, led by the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission. Radice, who serves as the chair of the Commission, began meeting regularly to strategize with partners and weekly with a core group of attorneys, including Keeda Haynes of Free Hearts, and two Davidson County legal aid attorneys, Tomi Robb and Savannah Quintero—both Legal Clinic alumni.
The statewide collaboration worked together to create an online form for people to request legal assistance and recruited volunteer lawyers to help. “It made sense for the Legal Clinic to help lead the statewide effort. We have unique expertise in this area. The most critical part was to marshal resources statewide to train and guide lawyers and legal aid attorneys who were helping clients for the first time,” Radice says. The group also developed a pro se packet, essentially a step-by-step guide to drafting a court petition to lift some of the legal obstacles for individuals who wanted to file a petition on their own.
Students at the Legal Clinic learned how to take clients through this complicated process step by step, while contemplating how to do justice within a sometimes-broken system.
“It’s an eye-opening experience and a robust legal issue to tackle in the advocacy clinic,” says Kristina Kersey, assistant professor of law and Advocacy Clinic professor, who also helped lead the project. “Students have to evaluate clients’ cases, draft petitions, learn how to file in circuit court, set the case on the docket, prep their client and witnesses to testify, create an opening and closing, and prep responses to legal issues that the judges could raise.”
Legal argument
It was discovered in early 2024, that the coordinator of elections was denying registration to Tennesseans with certain felony convictions, even if a circuit court had restored their voting rights. Persons with certain felonies are permanently barred from possessing firearms, and the coordinator’s position was that this permanent bar prevented them from a restoration of “full citizenship rights.” The Legal Clinic got to work crafting a legal argument about that issue.
“One of our students, Jackson Welsh, took the lead on crafting an argument that was then used throughout the state by other attorneys,” says Radice. “Using Tennessee Supreme Court and lower court decisions, we argued that ‘full restoration’ is available even if some rights are limited, such as the permanent bar on possession of a firearm for certain felony convictions. Despite this permanent bar, Knox County judges have ordered restoration of full citizenship rights. And each client’s right to vote was restored.”
“Appearing in Circuit Court beside a client for the first time to argue an issue of first impression to restore my client’s voting rights was both daunting and empowering,” explained Welsh, who graduated in May of 2024. “The professors in the Legal Clinic guided me step by step in crafting the novel legal argument. The Legal Clinic was the single most rewarding experience of my life.”
This semester, leading up to the election, calls poured in to the legal clinic hotline asking for help restoring voting rights. To respond to the need and the tight time frame before the election, Kersey and her students organized a Knox County pro se project to help individuals use the citizenship rights restoration packet created by the statewide Access to Justice project.
“We knew that time was of the essence,” explained third-year student Cheyenne Peters. “Professor Kersey was inspiring as she guided us to give the pro se clients hope. Filing in court as a pro se petitioner was intimidating, and the current 2-step process created obstacles despite how quickly we worked. Working on these cases though showed me how legal information and guidance empowered the individuals we worked with.”
Radice also trained pro bono students, some of whom were first-year students, to assist pro se individuals in drafting and filing petitions to restore their voting rights in Campbell County. Pro bono lawyers also watched a CLE hosted by the Knoxville Bar Association to learn how to navigate this process with clients and later assisted individuals in enabling them to vote for the first time in years.
The project has been tremendously rewarding and meaningful for students, and life changing for the clients they serve. Laura Davenport, a former client of the Voter Restoration Project, overcame drug addiction. As she took on leadership roles at a recovery non-profit and began peer recovery specialist certification, she decided to restore her rights.
“At the time of my felony conviction, I was going through a difficult time in my life–I am a totally different person now,” says Laura Davenport. “My student attorney, Hunter Bjornstad, put together a beautiful petition for the court to tell my story. He met with me, reviewed my criminal history, and helped me collect letters of support. I couldn’t have done that on my own. Thanks to the work of the Legal Clinic, I voted for the first time since my 20s this November.” This December, she graduated and received her peer recovery specialist certification.
This transformational outcome rewards not only the clients but also the faculty and students.
“It becomes a really powerful thing when clients regain their right to vote,” Radice says. “I have one client who, every election without fail, sends me a selfie of her wearing an ‘I Voted’ sticker, and I cry every time. That’s the level of dignity and meaning that we feel the project embodies.”