Mason v. State
| Decision Date | 11 May 2022 |
| Docket Number | PD-0881-20 |
| Parties | CRYSTAL MASON, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
ON APPELLANT'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE SECOND COURT OF APPEALS TARRANT COUNTY
McClure, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which Keller, P.J., and Hervey, Richardson, Newell, Keel, and Walker, JJ., joined. Yeary, J., filed a concurring and dissenting opinion. Slaughter, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
In 2018, Appellant Crystal Mason was convicted of illegal voting, then a second-degree felony, and sentenced to five years' confinement.[1] The Second Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction. Mason v. State, 598 S.W.3d 755, 763 (Tex. App.-Fort Worth 2020). Appellant filed a petition for discretionary review with this Court, arguing that the court of appeals erred in three ways: first, in holding that her unawareness about her ineligibility to vote "was irrelevant to her prosecution;" second, by interpreting the Illegal Voting statute to criminalize the good faith submission of provisional ballots where individuals turn out to be incorrect about their eligibility to vote (contrary to the federal Help America Vote Act); and third, by holding that Appellant "voted in an election" when she submitted a provisional ballot that was never counted. In a supplemental brief, Appellant argued that Senate Bill 1's retroactive change to the Texas Election Code nullified her conviction. As to grounds two and three, we hold that the Help America Vote Act does not preempt the Illegal Voting statute and that the court of appeals did not err by concluding that Appellant "voted." However, as to ground one, the court below erred by failing to require proof that the Appellant had actual knowledge that it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release. We remand to that court to evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence under the correct interpretation of the statute.
In the 2004 general election, Appellant filled out an Affidavit of Provisional Voter form. The form included the following affirmation: the voter had not been finally convicted of a felony, or if a felon, had completed all punishment including any term of incarceration, parole, supervision, or period of probation, or had been pardoned. The form served as an application for voter registration in Tarrant County from that point forward. Tarrant County accepted the form and registered Appellant as a voter. Appellant voted in the 2008 elections in Tarrant County.
In 2011, Appellant pled guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to defraud the United States arising out of a phony tax preparation scheme. United States v. Mason-Hobbs, Nos. 4:13-CV-078-A, 4:11-CR-151-A-1, 2013 WL 1339195, at *1 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 3, 2013). The federal court sentenced her to five years' imprisonment and three years of supervision after her release and ordered her to pay full restitution to the U.S. government ($4, 206, 805.49). Id. Her conviction became final by 2013. Id.
In accordance with requirements of the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA)[2], Tarrant County received a report which included Appellant's felony conviction and sentence. In 2013, the Tarrant County Elections Administration (TCEA) mailed a Notice of Examination to Appellant's listed home address. The notice stated that TCEA was examining her registration based on information about her felony conviction and informing her that if she did not reply within 30 days with adequate information to show her qualification to stay registered, her registration would be cancelled. See Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 16.033.
When the 30-day deadline passed without response, TCEA mailed a notice to the same address stating that Appellant's voter registration had been cancelled and that she was entitled to a hearing and appeal. When both notices were mailed, Appellant was in federal custody serving her sentence, and she testified at trial that she did not receive the notices. Neither notice was returned to TCEA, however. TCEA cancelled Mason's registration.
After finishing her prison term and while on supervised release, Appellant reported to her probation officer that she would resume living at the same address as before. At trial, a supervisor from the probation office testified that no one from that office told Appellant she was ineligible to vote while on supervised release.
On November 8, 2016, Appellant went to her designated polling place for the general election. The election worker checking the registration roll could not find her name, so workers offered to let her complete a provisional ballot, which she agreed to do. She completed the affidavit, just as she had done in 2004, and electronically cast her provisional ballot. The election worker who had checked the registration roll reported a concern about Appellant's provisional ballot to the election judge for Appellant's precinct, who happened to be Mason's neighbor. The election judge then reported the concern to the district attorney's office. Appellant's ballot was not counted in the election.
Appellant was ultimately indicted for voting in an election in which she knew she was not eligible to vote. The indictment alleged that she had not been fully discharged from her sentence for the felony conviction. She waived a jury trial and proceeded to a bench trial. Her defensive theories at trial were that she did not read the admonishments in the Affidavit of Provisional Voter, the government never told her she could not vote as a convicted felon, and she would not have voted had she known she was ineligible.
After conviction, Appellant filed a motion for new trial, which the trial court denied after holding an evidentiary hearing. The court issued written findings and conclusions, including that any rational factfinder could have found the State proved "the essential elements that the Defendant voted and that she was ineligible to vote," and that she "voted" when she cast her provisional ballot.
On direct appeal, Appellant argued five grounds: the evidence was both legally and factually insufficient to support the guilt finding; Texas's Illegal Voting statute was preempted by the part of the Help America Vote Act that grants the right to cast a provisional ballot; her conviction resulted from ineffective assistance of counsel; and the Illegal Voting statute was unconstitutionally vague as applied to her.
The Second Court of Appeals overruled Appellant's grounds and held, relevant to this proceeding, that the evidence was sufficient to support her conviction. Mason, 598 S.W.3d at 781, 789. The court below said that the State needed only to prove that Appellant voted while knowing of the existence of the condition that made her ineligible-in this case, that she was on federal supervised release after imprisonment for a final felony conviction. Id. at 770. The court below relied on two cases for the proposition that the State does not have to prove that the defendant subjectively knew that voting with that condition made the defendant ineligible to vote or knew that voting while being ineligible was a crime. In Thompson v. State, the defendant, who had a conviction for a felony assault with intent to murder, voted in a local mayoral election. 26 Tex. Ct. App. 94, 97, 9 S.W. 486, 486 (1888). The Texas Court of Appeals[3] upheld the conviction for illegal voting, holding:
As the defendant knew the fact that he had been convicted of the offense of assault with intent to murder, it must be conclusively presumed that he knew the legal consequences of such conviction; that he knew that the law declared that offense to be a felony, and that the Constitution and the law made one of the consequences of the conviction his disqualification to vote. He can not [sic] be heard to deny such knowledge, and it was not necessary that it should be proved that he had such knowledge, because the presumption of law supplied and dispensed with such proof.
9 S.W. at 486-87.[4]
Recently, the Fifth Court of Appeals relied on Thompson when upholding the conviction of a person who was tried as a party to someone else's illegal voting. Medrano v. State, 421 S.W.3d 869, 884-85 (Tex. App.-Dallas 2014, pet. ref'd). Medrano had asked several family members, including his niece Veronica, to change their addresses on their voter registration cards so that they could vote for him in the precinct where he was running for justice of the peace. Id. at 874-76. On appeal, Medrano argued that the State needed to prove that Veronica knew she was ineligible rather than proving she knew the circumstances rendering her ineligible. Id. at 884. In other words, Medrano argued that "if Veronica did not know what she was doing was illegal, she cannot have voted illegally." Id. The Medrano court disagreed, holding:
In Thompson, the defendant was charged with voting "knowing" he was not a "qualified voter," and here, Veronica was charged with voting when she knew she was not an eligible voter. Just as the State did not need to prove that Thompson knew the offense was a felony or that he was therefore not qualified to vote (only that he knew he had been convicted of an assault with the intent to commit murder), the State did not need to prove Veronica subjectively knew she was not eligible to vote; it needed only to prove she voted in the March 2010 Dallas County Primary Election when she knew she was not a resident of the precinct for which she was voting. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Applying the reasoning in Thompson, the Medrano court determined that the State provided evidence-namely that Veronica knew when she registered to vote and when she voted that she was not a resident of the address on her voter registration card and...
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