In a Due Process and Equal Protection Clause challenge to New York’s felon disenfranchisement laws, judgment on the pleadings for defendants is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs’ amended complaint failed to allege any facts as to discriminatory intent behind the legislature’s adoption of the state constitutional provision at issue; and 2) there was a rational basis for the statutes’ distinction between felons sentenced to incarceration or serving parole and those sentenced to probation.

Read Hayden v. Pataki, No. 04-3886

Appellate Information

Argued: October 26, 2007

Decided: January 28, 2010

Judges

Opinion by Judge Straub

Counsel

For Appellants:

Juan Cartagena, Risa Kaufman, Craig Acorn and Paul Keefe, Community Service Society of New York, New York, NY

For Appellees:

Benjamin N. Gutman and Michelle Aronowitz, Deputy Solicitor Generals, New York, NY

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