Why "Intent" Matters

New: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has told a lower appeals court to reconsider the controversial illegal voting conviction of Crystal Mason. https://t.co/plV61xQfKE

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) May 11, 2022

In criminal law, anyway:

The state’s court of last resort for criminal matters on Wednesday ruled a lower appeals court had wrongly upheld Mason's conviction by concluding that it was "irrelevant" to Mason's prosecution that she did not know she was ineligible to cast a ballot. The ruling opens the door for Mason's conviction to ultimately be overturned.

Mason’s lawyers turned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after the Tarrant County-based Second Court of Appeals found that her knowledge that she was on supervised release, and therefore ineligible to vote, was sufficient for an illegal voting conviction. Mason has said she did know she was ineligible to vote and wouldn’t have knowingly risked her freedom.

On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the lower court had “erred by failing to require proof that [Mason] had actual knowledge that it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release.” They sent the case back down with instructions for the lower court to “evaluate the sufficiency” of the evidence against Mason.

I have to say, being 40 years out of law school and my only brush with criminal law past law school being one Federal court appointment as jr. counsel on a case of possession of a firearm by a felon (he had no defense, and we didn't give him one), this ruling resonates with my understanding of "intent" (or mens rea, to use the proper term) for a criminal conviction. So the ruling of the trial court and the 2nd Court of Appeals seems pretty appalling.  It also seems pretty clear to me, based on this rendition of the facts of the case:

Mason’s case dates back to 2016 when, after discovering she was not on the voter roll, Mason submitted a provisional ballot in that year’s presidential election on the advice of a poll worker. Her ballot was rejected because she was not eligible to participate in elections while still on supervised release for a federal tax fraud conviction. But she was arrested a few months later.

Mason's prosecution hinged on an affidavit she signed before casting her provisional ballot that required individuals to swear that “if a felon, I have completed all my punishment including any term of incarceration, parole, supervision, period of probation, or I have been pardoned.”

That sounds like the same kind of bad TV "evidence" in a murder trial, where someone says they heard the defendant say, in the heat of passion, "I'll kill you!" Convicting someone because they signed a form document and cast a provisional ballot on the advice of a poll worker is hardly solid evidence of mens rea, especially if the defendant presents evidence she had no intent to violate the law. (If you're wondering and if you remember my accounts of my one criminal trial (hearing, really), you'll remember the defendant denied he "possessed" the gun in question. But the statute there was a strict liability issue:  possession meant "custody or control," and the gun was in the car he was driving.  No one else was in the car; that made the fun within his "custody of control."  EOD.  Strict liability can apply in those cases because the defendant must be a convicted felon for the statute to apply.  It couldn't apply to just any person, in other words.)  Speaking of strict liability, it shouldn't apply here (and the Court said it doesn't) because the question is whether or not she signed the affidavit knowing (mens rea, again) she was signing it falsely.  If the evidence is not beyond a reasonable doubt, the conviction cannot attach.

That, at least, is my law school memory of how it works.

And yes, this would be why it is hard to convict Trump of any crimes; or to convict any white collar criminal of a business crime.  But justice is justice, and this woman doesn't clearly (IMHLO) deserve to go to jail for trying to vote.  As a political issue, a criminal record shouldn't be a bar to voting (the 15th Amendment is honored in the breach, never in the keeping).  As a legal matter, the Court of Criminal Appeals got this one just right.

IMHLO, of course.