Crystal Mason’s illegal voting conviction overturned!

[pdq]

Crystal Mason was the (Black) woman who was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison for casting a provisional ballot that she thought she was allowed to cast in Texas in 2016. The ALCU took her case and the Texas Court of Appeals (after initially reaffirming her conviction and sentence in 2020) has reversed course:

A Texas appeals court on Thursday overturned the illegal voting conviction of Crystal Mason, who was given a five-year prison sentence for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election while on supervised release for federal tax evasion.

The decision by the Tarrant County-based Second Court of Appeals means she is formally acquitted of the felony voting charge. The court said in the decision that there was no evidence Mason knew she was ineligible to vote when she cast her ballot — which is a condition that must be met in order to convict her of illegal voting.

It took them seven years after her conviction, of course; she ended up serving 7 months in prison, followed by the state mandating that she live not in her home but in a halfway house. (She has three children who grew up during this whole ordeal).

But she persisted. And just yesterday, won.

miley-music039:

[Ombligo]

Is she still on supervised release or can she vote now?

[pdq]

Ombligo wrote:
Is she still on supervised release or can she vote now?

Well, who knows? I think that voting while Black is still frowned upon in Red states:

To this day, Crystal, who is Black, feels that her prosecution was politically and racially charged. She brings up the case of Terri Lynn Rote, a white woman in Iowa, who was convicted of voter fraud after purposely trying to cast a ballot for President Trump twice. She received a sentence of two years’ probation and a $750 fine. Even more recently, in April 2018, a white, Republican justice of the peace in Tarrant County pled guilty to submitting fake signatures to secure a place on a primary ballot. Sharen Wilson’s office, the same office that prosecuted Crystal, agreed to a sentence of five years’ probation.

“It was to make an example out of me. It was cruel.

[Speedy]

Thanks for posting this! I’m glad to hear she was exonerated, it should have happened a long time ago.

[RgrF]

Some anonymous prosecutor somewhere had to decide to prosecute her while a sad excuse for a judge (who was probably elected) passed sentence.

Wonder how these people sleep at night.

[Speedy]

RgrF wrote:
Some anonymous prosecutor somewhere had to decide to prosecute her while a sad excuse for a judge (who was probably elected) passed sentence.

Wonder how these people sleep at night.

Those types of people sleep quite well.

[Ted King]

Speedy wrote:
[quote=RgrF]
Some anonymous prosecutor somewhere had to decide to prosecute her while a sad excuse for a judge (who was probably elected) passed sentence.

Wonder how these people sleep at night.

Those types of people sleep quite well.
Yup, because they get accolades from the "right" kind of people for doing something about Democrats cheating in elections. Even if it is only symbolic. Even if it fucks up a woman and her children's lives. It's disgusting.

[$tevie]

This is good news. I hope her life goes uphill from here. She's had a tough time.

[vision63]

$tevie wrote:
This is good news. I hope her life goes uphill from here. She's had a tough time.

It doesn't get more surreal than what happened to her.

[DeusxMac]

vision63 wrote:
[quote=$tevie]
This is good news. I hope her life goes uphill from here. She's had a tough time.

It doesn't get more surreal than what happened to her.
Kafkaesque

"Examples include instances in which bureaucracies overpower people, often in a surreal, nightmarish milieu that evokes feelings of senselessness, disorientation, and helplessness. Characters in a Kafkaesque setting often lack a clear course of action to escape a labyrinthine situation."