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.
Mason has maintained throughout the seven-year case that she did not know she was ineligible and would not have risked her freedom if she had. She said Thursday in a statement that her long legal fight, which gained international attention, was devastating.
“I am overjoyed to see my faith rewarded today,” Mason said. “I was thrown into this fight for voting rights and will keep swinging to ensure no one else has to face what I’ve endured for over six years, a political ploy where minority voting rights are under attack.”
The case thrust Mason, who is Black, into the political fray amid a Republican-led crackdown on voter fraud, partly fueled by baseless claims of rampant illegal voting.
“I’ve cried and prayed every night for over six years straight that I would remain a free Black woman,” Mason said. “I thank everyone whose dedication and support carried me through this time and look forward to celebrating this moment with my family and friends.”
The Second Court of Appeals initially upheld her conviction but two years ago was instructed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to “evaluate the sufficiency” of the evidence against Mason, saying that the lower court had “erred by failing to require proof that [Mason] had actual knowledge that it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release.”
“We are relieved for Ms. Mason, who has waited for too long with uncertainty about whether she would be imprisoned and separated from her family for five years simply for trying to do her civic duty,” said Thomas Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas. “The harms of the criminal prosecution can never fully be undone, but this decision is vindication for Ms. Mason and a win for our democracy, which can only thrive when people can fearlessly engage in the civic process.”
[…]
In its 2022 ruling, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that Texas election law requires individuals to know they are ineligible to vote to be convicted of illegal voting. The law had been clarified by lawmakers in 2021 with additions to the election code stating Texans may not be convicted of voting illegally “solely upon the fact that the person signed a provisional ballot,” and instead required other evidence to corroborate they knowingly tried to cast an unlawful vote.
The appeals court wrote in its 2022 decision that the new law showed that that lawmakers never intended to convict a voter with good intentions.
“To construe the statute to mean that a person can be guilty even if she does not ‘know the person is not eligible to vote’ is to disregard the words the Legislature intended,” the court wrote. “It turns the knowledge requirement into a sort of negligence scheme wherein a person can be guilty because she fails to take reasonable care to ensure that she is eligible to vote.”
Thursday’s decision by the Tarrant County court acknowledged that.
“We conclude that the quantum of the evidence presented in this case is insufficient to support the conclusion that Mason actually realized that she voted knowing that she was ineligible to do so and, therefore, insufficient to support her conviction for illegal voting,” the decision reads.
See here, here, and here for the background, and here for all previous coverage. This should be the end of the very long line. It’s hard for me to see how Tarrant County could try again to convict her – I assume that double jeopardy would attach, if nothing else – but I Am Not A Lawyer, so perhaps I’m missing something. Assuming I am right, this is a big win for justice that took way too long to happen. Be that as it may, I am thrilled for Crystal Mason and I wish her nothing but the best going forward.
Quoting law commentator PopeHat: “Ms. Mason faced five years in a Texas prison. To put that in perspective, it’s the equivalent of a white man getting a $5,000 fine or almost 100 hours of community service.”
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