Why 🐵 UnitedStatesNews-NoOpEd picked: Texas court ends case against woman sentenced to five years over voting error

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Source: theguardian.com

<p>Crystal Mason has spent nearly a decade fighting conviction for casting provisional ballot that ultimately wasn’t counted</p><p>The nearly <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crystal-mason-prison-sentence_n_5d3b04e8e4b0c31569e9fb94" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">decade-long case</a> of a Black Texas woman who was sentenced to five years in prison in a controversial illegal voting case will end with an acquittal, the state’s highest criminal court said in a 5-4 decision on Thursday.</p><p>The woman, Crystal Mason, has been appealing against the case ever since her 2018 conviction for casting a provisional ballot that ultimately <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crystal-mason-provisional-ballot_n_5d5c5f88e4b0d1e113695972" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">wasn’t counted</a>. In 2024, the Texas court of criminal <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/28/crystal-mason-texas-woman-acquitted" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">appeals acquitted </a>her in the case. The local prosecutor handling the case appealed that ruling to Texas’s highest criminal court, which initially agreed to hear it. But on Thursday, the court reversed itself, and said it would not hear an appeal, letting the acquittal stand. It did not offer any explanation for why.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/24/texas-court-crystal-mason-voting-case" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">Continue reading...</a>