Judge orders new trial for woman sentenced to 6 years for trying to register to vote

[EleanorR]

Excellent news!

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[dlilafae]

1. That's the right thing to do

[Nevilledog]

2. Good.

[Ohio Joe]

3. Good...

That was a bullshit charge and an outright racist conviction/sentence.

[BlueIdaho]

4. Thank Goodness

Now let’s address the judge who created this travesty of Justice!

[XacerbatedDem]

50. Exactly what I was thinking...

and what about those judges who let off those repug a-holes who tried to vote twice using their dead relatives ballots? They should be next.

[PoliticAverse]

5. Good. n/t

[struggle4progress]

6. ... 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.

The review found that the probation officer – referred to as Manager Billington – spent about an hour investigating whether Moses was still on probation. Billington came across a note in Moses’ file noting that in 2016, she had been placed on supervised probation for two years. Even though the system said that Moses remained on unsupervised probation, Billington thought this was a mistake. The person who handled the file, he believed, forgot to close out the case when the supervised probation ran out. That’s why he ultimately signed Moses’ voting certificate saying her probation had expired in 2018 and she was eligible to vote ...

New evidence undermines case against Black US woman jailed for voting error
Sam Levine in New York
Thu 24 Feb 2022 10.00 EST

[Cha]

41. TY!

💙

[femmedem]

7. Excellent! The conviction and sentence were both outrageous. n/t

[uponit7771]

9. +1, claiming she "tricked" her parole officer... my ass

[BComplex]

47. The prosecutor and judge in that trial need to be removed from their jobs.

And not allowed to practice law in any court in the land. Ever.

[Budi]

8. She should have the whole thing rescinded & wiped from her record.

[reACTIONary]

23. And she should receive compensation for...

.. the pain and suffering.

[calimary]

24. Yes. Yes, and yes.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

10. Good News N/T

[malaise]

11. Great news

Rec

[dchill]

12. YES!

[flying_wahini]

13. Happy to hear it. 'Bout damn time.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Very Good!

First, this wasn't a crime worth prosecuting as a felony.
Second, the sentence was outrageous.
Now, it turns out the whole thing was somebody else's mistake.
Smells like prosecutorial misconduct. This all could have been uncovered before a grand jury was ever convened.

[ShazzieB]

43. Prosecutorial misconduct is right!

This never, ever should have gone to trial. If I lived in Tennessee, I'd be really pissed about this gross and blatant misuse of taxpayers' money (on top of the injustice and everything else).

[halfulglas]

15. Funny how she was sent back to jail even though she had no intent to break law

When so many of the cases against Trump and other Republicans can't be pressed because with lack of paper trail there is no proof of intent to break the law.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. I hope this lady sues the pants off them when it's all over

This was a harsh and abusive punishment by any measure.

[Pinback]

38. Damn right.

What an atrocious injustice. I bet there are 5,000 lawyers willing to take her case pro bono.

[vanlassie]

17. Rachel made a big effort before taking her break,

to highlight this injustice. Compared to SEVERAL instances where Republicans have been caught and admitted voting using dead relatives’ ballots and getting slaps on the wrist.

[brer cat]

18. Great news!

Her imprisonment was outrageous.

[MyOwnPeace]

19. Quite the day for 'voting' news......

here's a person unjustly jailed for simply TRYING to vote and already wrongly spending time IN JAIL - and a bunch of RepubliQans are revealed to have changed voter registrations of hundreds of people without their knowledge.

SO tell me again, TFG - who is it that is doing all of this massive VOTING FRAUD???????????

We have to start PUTTING THE REAL CHEATS IN JAIL or we're going to lose our country.

[Hortensis]

20. Out of custody and home I hope. She was sentenced to the 6 years

the first week of this month, so people moved fast (considering) to get her out. Her corrections department officers and county elections board admitted they mistakenly signed off on her eligibility to vote before she was.

[ificandream]

21. Great to see this. She never should have been in jail in the first place.

[Hekate]

22. All the best to her in overcoming this outrage

[Fla Dem]

25. This is such wonderful news. I am so happy for her. This was outrageous discriminatory treatment.

[NickB79]

26. All felons should have their voting rights restored the DAY they are released

[MichMan]

35. She is still on probation, so her sentence wasn't completed yet

[NickB79]

37. If you're non-violent enough to be paroled, you can vote

That's my belief.

[MichMan]

39. Not arguing, but parole and probation are not the same thing

[ShazzieB]

45. No, they're not, but she was not even still on probation.

Reply #6, above, makes that quite clear:

The review found that the probation officer – referred to as Manager Billington – spent about an hour investigating whether Moses was still on probation. Billington came across a note in Moses’ file noting that in 2016, she had been placed on supervised probation for two years. Even though the system said that Moses remained on unsupervised probation, Billington thought this was a mistake. The person who handled the file, he believed, forgot to close out the case when the supervised probation ran out. That’s why he ultimately signed Moses’ voting certificate saying her probation had expired in 2018 and she was eligible to vote ...

She had completed her two years of probation, but some idiot forgot to file the necessary paperwork that would have cleared her to vote.

[MichMan]

49. She is still on probation according to the link in post #6

Hopefully she can stay out of jail this time and doesn't get convicted again of doing something else.


“Manager Billington advised that he thought he did due diligence in making his decision,” Joe Williams, an administrator in the department of corrections, wrote to Lisa Helton, a top department official. “Manager Billington failed to adequately investigate the status of this case. He failed to review all of the official documents available through the Shelby county justice portal and negligently relied on a contact note from a court specialist in 2016.”


Williams went on to note that if Billington had looked harder, he would have found additional documents, issued in 2019, that said Moses was on probation. Williams conceded that it was “tedious” to find some of that information. “The information that Manager Billington had at the time he signed the Voters Restoration was insufficient to reasonably affirm that an offender was off supervision.”

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

[gademocrat7]

27. Very good news!

[PatrickforB]

28. So...let's get this straight:

A woman made the mistake of trying to register to vote while being black and gets six years.

A traitor storms the US Capitol, injures cops, terrorizes members of Congress and staff members, steals and breaks things, smears feces on the walls, and gets six months.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

[DanieRains]

29. The Judge That Sentenced Her Should Be Locked Up

Justice.

[monkeyman1]

30. add dis-bared !

[SunSeeker]

31. She has already served more time than the insurrectionist who stole Pelosi's lecturn got.

[whathehell]

32. Good. n/t

[keithbvadu2]

33. IOKIYAAR

Link to tweet

[yellowdogintexas]

54. Crystal Mason's case is being appealed.

I have not been able to find out if the election judge checked with the elections office to confirm the reason she did not appear on the registered voter list. ]

If this was the case, the election judge should have advised Crystal that her registration would need to be renewed after her probation officer signed a letter of release. She would then be able to register and vote.

In any case, there was no intent to defraud since Crystal did not know she had been purged

It is my understanding that another similar case to Crystal's is pending in San Antonio.

[MichMan]

34. Can she sue the individual jurors for damages?

[secondwind]

36. YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gristy]

40. Wonderful news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love this woman!

[raging moderate]

42. Is there a GoFundMe for Pamela Moses?

I always listen to DU about how to do these contributions, because I am not really sophisticated enough to trust my own judgement.

[Meowmee]

46. Yay 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[DFW]

48. The prosecuting attorney is the one who deserves 6 years in jail

We do NOT need people like that in our justice system.

[usaf-vet]

51. And this guy gets 75 days. Our legal system is broken. White guy 75 days Black woman 6 years.

[bigtree]

52. drop the charges

[dlk]

53. Public Pressure Works

This case was a complete travesty from the beginning and never should have been brought to trial. It's heartening to see how massive public pressure can still be brought to bear on corrupt officials. I wish all the best to Pamela Moses. She deserves it!

[Martin68]

55. Finally. Justice.

[BlueJac]

56. Great news

[niyad]

57. About damned time.

[UTUSN]

58. K&R