FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 18, 2022
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Gino Nuzzolillo, gino@scsj.org, 402-415-4763
Melissa Boughton, melissa@scsj.org, 830-481-6901
Sailor Jones, sailor@scsj.org, 919-260-5906
Durham, N.C. (Jan. 18, 2022) — On Friday, January 14, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice petitioned the North Carolina Supreme Court to review legislative defendants’ appeal of a state court ruling striking down their racially-discriminatory voter ID law.
Read the 26-page Petition for Discretionary Review here.
SCSJ filed the petition on the grounds that the subject matter of the case, Holmes v. Moore, “raises issues of significant public interest,” and that any delay in the case’s resolution would likely cause substantial harm to petitioners and other voters across the state, as well as election officials and legislators.
Holmes v. Moore was brought by attorneys with SCSJ and pro bono counsel from the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, on behalf of five North Carolina voters. Filed in December 2018, Holmes v. Moore alleged North Carolina’s voter ID law (S.B. 824), which was approved by a Republican-led supermajority in a lame-duck session, was racially motivated.
In September 2021, following a three-week trial, the majority of a three-judge Superior Court panel struck down the law, saying, “[the law] was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American voters.”
###
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, founded in 2007, partners with communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities in the South to defend and advance their political, social, and economic rights through the combination of legal advocacy, research, organizing, and communications. Learn more at southerncoalition.org and follow our work on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.