promoting sentencing reform.

“They are issues that permeate the justice system and are relevant in every state,” he said.

A spokeswoman said state Attorney General Rob McKenna is weighing the state’s next step.

The lawsuit was filed by Muhammad Shabazz Farrakhan of Bellevue. He was serving a three-year sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla for a series of felony-theft convictions when he sued the state in 1996.

Ultimately, five other inmates, all members of racial minority groups, joined as plaintiffs.

The lawsuit contended that because nonwhites make up a large percentage of the prison population, a state law prohibiting inmates and parolees from voting is illegal because it dilutes the electoral clout of minorities.

That was a violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965, the lawsuit said.

The state contendedHawzah News Agency (Qom, Iran) – The text of Islamic Seminaries' condolence message on the demise of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the head of Iranian Expediency council is as follows:

In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful

We extend our sincere condolences on the demise of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of Iranian Expediency Council and a great revolutionary figure, to Imam al-Mahdi (as), Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, grand Shia sources of emulation, Islamic seminaries, the Iranian nation as well as the family members of the deceased.

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was a prominent Islamic figure and a revolutionary cleric who played crucial roles in different stages of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. During late Imam Khomeini's anti-shah struggles, he was cooperating with the founder of the revolution