The case of a woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for trying to vote is back in court

Crystal Mason, the Black woman sentenced to five years in prison for trying to vote while ineligible to vote, will be retried by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court. The court had already reviewed the case in 2022 and sent it back to a lower court after finding that the lower court had erred in upholding Mason's conviction. After that lower court reconsidered the case, Mason's conviction was overturned in March. Her lawyers hoped that would be the end of it — but the local district attorney appealed the decision, so the case goes back to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which Guardian reports. The question is whether Mason realized she was ineligible to vote (because she was on probation at the time for a federal tax offense).

The lower court overturned the conviction after finding there was insufficient evidence to show Mason was aware of her ineligibility, but the prosecutor believes the evidence was in fact sufficient, WFAA reports. “The Court of Appeals erroneously interpreted ambiguous testimony in favor of the defense, admitted evidence that the trial court was permitted to disregard, re-weighted evidence in favor of the defense, and ignored evidence that supported the trial court's findings, all of which is contrary to this court's binding precedent,” his firm's attorneys wrote in a legal document. The Court of Appeals will decide the case without oral argument and has not yet set a timetable for the case. (More stories from Texas.)