Mississippi Advisory Opinions September 06, 2006: No. 2006-00386 (September 6, 2006)

No. 2006-00386.

DOCK 2006-00386

Dear Mr. Loftin:

Attorney General Jim Hood received your letter of request and assigned it to me for research and reply. Your letter states:

The Marion County Election Commission and I are requesting an opinion as to whether or not the crime of looting is a disenfranchising crime.

As you know, one of the disenfranchising crimes listed in Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution is theft. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cotton v. Fordice, 157 F.3d 388 (1998) in ruling that armed robbery is a disenfranchising crime, said that the term "theft" is an "umbrella term" to describe those crimes that involve a "wrongful taking" of property.

Mississippi Code Annotated Section 97-17-65 (1) (Revised 2000) provides:

A person commits looting when he knowingly without authority of law or of the owner enters any home or dwelling, or upon any premises of another, or enters any commercial, mercantile, business or industrial building, plant or establishment, in which a normal security of property is not present by virtue of a hurricane, fire or vis major of any kind or by virtue of a riot, mob, or other human agency and obtains or exerts control over or injures or removes property of the owner.

The wrongful taking of property is not an essential element of the crime of looting. In other words, one may commit the crime of looting without actually taking property.

Since one convicted of the crime of looting may or may not have taken property, we are constrained by the above cited case to say that looting does not necessarily constitute theft and is not a disenfranchising crime.

Sincerely,

JIM HOOD, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By:

Phil Carter Special Assistant Attorney General