Texas’ highest criminal court will hear the case of Crystal Mason, a Tarrant County woman whose voter fraud conviction was previously overturned.
Mason, 49, has been a focal point in Texas’ tough-on-voter-fraud election laws. She was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for submitting a provisional ballot while she was still under sentence for a federal fraud conviction.
A Fort Worth appeals court overturned her conviction in March, citing a change in state law that requires prosecutors to prove someone intended to commit voter fraud in cases similar to Mason’s. Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells appealed the ruling in April.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not indicate why the all-Republican court granted Sorrells’ petition for discretionary review Wednesday. Oral arguments will not be held, the order said.
“Crystal’s acquittal was the correct result under the law,” Mason defense attorney Alison Grinter Allen said. “I have faith that the Court of Criminal Appeals will do the right thing and put this matter to bed at long last.”
A spokeswoman for the Tarrant County district attorney’s office said the court granted review on whether the appeals court applied the correct legal standard when it overturned Mason’s conviction.
“The next step will be for the parties to file briefs with the Court of Criminal Appeals addressing the appropriate standard of review and whether Mason’s conviction is supported by sufficient evidence,” office spokeswoman Anna Tinsley Williams said in an emailed statement.
See here and here for the previous updates, and here for the CCA’s notice. The prosecutors have 30 days to file their briefs, and Mason will have 30 days after that to respond. The CCA will then render its decision when it damn well feels like it. I am in full support of Crystal Mason and very much hope that the CCA upholds the lower court’s ruling. Spectrum News, the Trib, Houston Public Media, and the ACLU have more.
IANAL but it seems to me that the whole point of casting a provisional ballot is to avoid counting an ineligible vote. IOW the exact opposite of intended fraud.