Texas mother who faced 5 years in prison has illegal voting conviction reversed [View all]

Source: CNN

Published 4:09 AM EDT, Fri March 29, 2024


CNN — A Texas mother who was sentenced to five years in prison for voting illegally in the 2016 election said she is “overjoyed” after her conviction was reversed Thursday by the Texas Second Court of Appeals. Crystal Mason, a Black mother of three, was on supervised release after serving time for tax fraud when she filled out a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. She said she did not know her status as a felon on release made her ineligible to cast a ballot.

“After considering the dispositive issue remanded to us––whether the evidence was sufficient to support Crystal Mason’s conviction for illegal voting under the Texas Election Code––we reverse the trial court’s judgment and render judgment acquitting her,” the court said in its opinion. Mason celebrated the court’s decision, which she has been waiting for since 2019, when she appealed her five-year sentence.

“I am overjoyed to see my faith rewarded today,” Mason said in a statement shared by ACLU of Texas. “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. I’ve cried and prayed every night for over six years straight that I would remain a free Black woman.”

After Mason was convicted, voting rights activists compared her case to other voter fraud convictions involving White defendants who received more lenient sentences.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/29/us/texas-woman-voting-conviction-reversed/index.html