New evidence undermines case against Black US woman jailed for voting error

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/24/fight-to-vote-newsletter-black-woman-jailed-voting-error-evidence


Hello Fight to vote Readers,

I have an update in my reporting on the case of Pamela Moses, the 44-year-old Black Lives Matter Activist in Memphis who was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote. The case has attracted significant national attention because many see Moses’ sentence as too severe and a clear example of disparities in the US criminal justice system.

The prosecution’s case is built around the argument that Moses knew she was ineligible to vote because she was on probation, and people on felony probation in Tennessee cannot vote. Indeed, a few months before she tried to register, a judge had issued an order telling Moses her probation was ongoing. But nevertheless, prosecutors argued, she convinced a probation officer into signing a form saying she was eligible to vote and then knowingly submitted the document knowing it was false. “You tricked the probation department into giving you documents saying you were off probation,” W Mark Ward, the judge who sentenced Moses, said in January.

Moses, for her part, told me she did now know she was ineligible and her lawyers have said she went to the probation office genuinely seeking clarity about whether she could vote. A new email I obtained through a public records request adds to evidence undercutting the claim that Moses tricked the officer.

In September 2019, just two days after a probation officer mistakenly signed a certificate telling Moses her probation was complete, officials at the Tennessee department of corrections investigated how exactly their employee made the error. Their investigation didn’t find that Moses had deceived a probation officer, but rather that the officer had made a good-faith mistake.

*snip*

[lagomorph777]

1. Prosecute the prosecutor.

[DURHAM D]

2. The wrong people are in jail. nt

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[Solomon]

4. This kind of shit literally makes me sick!

Jailed not for voting illegally. But for attempting to register.

[brer cat]

5. K&R

[dlk]

6. This was a malicious prosecution

In every sense of the word.

[Delphinus]

7. You said it well.

[pandr32]

9. Absolutely

[Escurumbele]

8. They need to get her out of jail, pay compensation and put the other thugs who knowingly

voted for their dead wives in favour of the buffoon in jail. Those white cheaters got out of trouble with a slap on the wrist, I bet at least one of them will try it again in the future.

[KPN]

10. The wrong people are being put in jail as a poster above said.

Boy, it almost seems like we are in Russia when it comes to red States.

[gratuitous]

11. It's just so weird

Pamela Moses is sentenced to six years in prison for attempting to register to vote. There doesn't need to be any showing of willfulness on her part, or intent to commit a crime. The simple fact that she submitted a voter registration form is good enough to send her away for years.

But when someone, oh let's just say, has a history of overvaluing his real estate assets when he applies for a bank loan, then undervalues those same assets when it comes time to pay property taxes, there has to be an iron-clad, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt showing that the person engaged in these financial shenanigans intended to secure the loan or to pay lower taxes. Apparently in this area of the law, situational valuations are the norm, and it's just, I dunno, happenstance that these excusable and totally understandable "mistakes" continually put more money into the real estate wheeler-dealer's pocket.

Like I said, "weird." Almost like there are two standards of justice for people in these here United States.