Crystal Mason (center) and her legal team in 2018. | Source: Crystal Mason
A Texas district attorney is unwilling to accept a recent decision from an appeals court to overturn a Black woman’s voting fraud conviction and is demanding the initial guilty verdict be reinstated.
Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells on Thursday announced his office is formally appealing the ruling in the case of Crystal Mason, who was famously sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in Texas for the 2016 election, when Trump won.
Mason’s conviction was overturned last month, and Sorrells is apparently mad at the Second Court of Appeals for doing so.
“The Second Court of Appeals failed to give proper deference to the trial court’s guilty verdict and reweighed the evidence in favor of Mason,” Sorrells’ office said in a statement on Thursday. “The Second Court of Appeals misapplied the sufficiency standard of review by not viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s verdict – in contravention to binding precedent from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The Second Court of Appeals’ publication of its opinion creates the very real risk that future sufficiency cases will likewise be wrongly analyzed and decided.”
The statement, which derided Mason as “a four-time felon,” added: “This office requests that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant review in this case, reverse the Second Court of Appeals’ decision, and affirm the trial court’s guilty verdict.”
Breaking news: The Tarrant county district attorney says it is appealing ruling that threw out Crystal Mason’s 5 year prison sentence for illegal voting. pic.twitter.com/4mPpkg9cPs
— Sam Levine (@srl) April 25, 2024
Mason has maintained all along that she was unaware of a state mandate that barred persons with convictions from voting.
“I am overjoyed to see my faith rewarded today,” Mason said in a statement after her conviction was overturned last month. “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.”
Mason continued: “I’ve cried and prayed every night for over six years straight that I would remain a free Black woman. I thank everyone whose dedication and support carried me through this time and look forward to celebrating this moment with my family and friends.”
What was Crystal Mason accused of doing?
Mason was out on supervised parole in 2016 when she stood in line to submit a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. But because of her prior 2011 tax fraud conviction, Mason was not allowed to vote in the state of Texas. Mason filled out a ballot with the help of a poll worker, but election officials later discounted her ballot due to the state mandate.
Mason knowingly signed an affidavit informing voters of the consequences if they had a prior conviction. However, she said that she did not read that portion of the affidavit because a poll worker had helped her fill out the required forms.
A trial court judge agreed with prosecutors and convicted her of illegally voting, a second-degree state felony. In March 2020, a state appellate court upheld the conviction. She served time in prison until she was released to a halfway house in May 2020.
This is America.
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