Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrels faced public backlash at Tuesday’s commissioners court hearing over his decision to appeal in the illegal voting case of Crystal Mason, who was exonerated last month by the state’s highest criminal court.
Mason, was also in attendance outside Tuesday’s meeting, repeated what she has maintained the last seven years: that she did not know she wasn’t allowed vote while on supervised release from prison.
"This is overwhelming,” a frustrated Mason said. “This is sickening.”
Mason was arrested and prosecuted after casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election while on supervised release for federal tax evasion. The ballot ultimately was not counted, but Mason was convicted.
Mason was initially given a five-year sentence for casting her provisional ballot. Throughout the seven-year long case she argued she did not know she was ineligible and would not have risked her freedom if she had.
In Texas, a person with a felony conviction can vote if they have finished the full term of their sentence which includes parole, probation, and supervision, according to the Texas State Law Library.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Tarrant County residents came out in support of Mason and publicly criticized Sorrels’ attempt to have the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals re-examine the case.
"I'm so glad that I have the community here supporting this and seeing this,” Mason said.
In Tuesday’s briefing at the Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting, Sorrells went back and forth with county commissioner Alisa Simmons, who said if Mason’s ballot did not count, she did not vote.
But Sorrells said the case was not a question of if she voted, but whether she knew she couldn’t vote.
“I want would-be illegal voters to know that we’re watching,” Sorrells said during his briefing.
The Second Court of Appeals in Tarrant County ruled in March that there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mason knew she was ineligible to vote on supervised released.
That same court initially upheld Mason’s conviction. But two years ago, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals instructed the Second Court of Appeals to “evaluate the sufficiency” of the evidence against Mason.
During public comment Tuesday, speakers like Ebony Turner, founder of the Black Mansfield Moms group, asked commissioners why they were not pursuing other cases.
Turner was among several speakers who brought up former Mansfield ISD candidate Angel Hildago, who was declared ineligible to run but remained on the May 4 ballot. A Fort Worth Star-Telegram review found that Hildago ran for Mansfield ISD Place 2 despite being registered to vote in Dallas County until Feb. 25, two days after the deadline to remove candidates from the ballot.
"Why don't you go after the candidate who was declared ineligible to run for Mansfield ISD Trustee Place 2?" she said.
Other speakers like county resident Josh Lucas said the county should use its money on other services.
"The money wasted on useless voter suppression tactics would be better spent on a public defender's office specializing in mental health," he said.
Lucas' comment about mental health was made more than two weeks after 31-year-old Anthony Johnson died while in custody at the Tarrant County Jail. Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn attributed Johnson's death to a lack of mental health care. A release issued by the sheriff's office said Johnson was pepper sprayed before he became unresponsive and later died.
Outside Tuesday’s meeting, Mason's general counsel Dominique Alexander called Sorrells' testimony "misleading."
"That literally threw out the whole basis of the conviction that Tarrant County even got in the district court," Alexander said regarding Mason not knowing she was ineligible to vote. "But you literally heard a Tarrant County district attorney literally go before the commissioners court, as if the appeals court never gave a ruling."
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