By Timothy Bella Today at 4:00 p.m. EST Pamela Moses said she had taken all the steps to restore her voting rights in Tennessee. Moses, a Black Lives Matter activist and former Democratic mayoral candidate in Memphis, had an extensive record of previous felony convictions, including a conviction of tampering with evidence that caused her to permanently lose her voting rights in the state. To regain rights that she says she didn’t know she had lost when she pleaded guilty, the corrections department and county election commission both signed off on Moses’s voter registration application in 2019 certifying that her probation had ended, granting her full voting privileges once again. But there was a problem: The officials who signed off on Moses being eligible to vote acknowledged they made an error in saying her probation was over, meaning her voting rights had not been restored. So when the 44-year-old Black woman submitted the certificate as part of her voter registration, she was charged with trying to illegally register to vote. After she was convicted of the voting error last November, Moses was sentenced this week to six years and one day in prison. “I relied on the election commission because those are the people who are supposed to know what you’re supposed to do,” she told WREG before her sentencing. “And I found out that they didn’t know.” Her sentencing Monday has been decried by critics as a much harsher sentence compared with other recent voting fraud cases involving conservative White men. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund tweeted that the case captured how “there are two criminal justice systems in America.” “This case is one about the disparity in sentencing and punishment — and one that shouldn’t have happened,” Bede Anyanwu, her attorney, told The Washington Post on Friday. Anyanwu, who said Moses plans to appeal, added, “It’s all very, very disturbing.” Moses has maintained that she thought her voting rights were restored when she received a letter saying as much, noting in court, “I did not falsify anything.” Her defense only angered Criminal Court Judge W. Mark Ward, who said she had intentionally deceived probation officials to restore her voting rights. “You tricked the probation department into giving you documents saying you were off probation,” Ward said in court. Neither Ward nor a spokesperson with the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Moses’s case, immediately responded to requests for comment Friday. Ward said he would consider placing Moses on probation after nine months of her sentence if she maintains good behavior and complete programs while in prison, reported WHBQ. The Tennessee case is expected to add to rising national tensions surrounding voter suppression and disenfranchisement, Janai Nelson, the associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told MSNBC. Moses has been likened to Black people such as Hervis Rogers and Crystal Mason, who’ve faced years in prison over mistakes regarding their voting eligibility. “It points to everything that is wrong in our democracy,” Nelson, who is not involved in the Moses case, said to host Rachel Maddow. “It’s a confluence of racial discrimination and voter suppression.” As former president Donald Trump and his allies have continued to make baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, there have been several notable instances of voter fraud among White male Republican voters from the 2020 presidential election. Las Vegas GOP voter Donald Kirk Hartle was charged and convicted last year for forging his late wife’s name to vote with her ballot, which came after he alleged that someone else had stolen her ballot. Hartle was sentenced to probation. Similar instances happened with GOP officials and voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania who admitted to casting ballots for their dead parents — cases in which the men received probation and no more than three days in jail. The voting case involving Moses, however, was different and complicated, in more ways than one. Moses had 16 previous felony convictions, according to a news release from Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich (R). Anyanwu said some of the counts against Moses came decades earlier, when she was in her 20s, and he noted that she was forced to plead guilty in some of the cases “given the fact that she is a lady of limited resources.” “She, like some of my clients, plead guilty because they don’t have the money to fight these battles,” he said. One of the most serious incidents was when Moses pleaded guilty in 2015 to a 10-count indictment, including perjury and tampering with evidence. She allegedly stalked and harassed a Shelby County judge between February and March 2014 by impersonating an attorney and notary public in an effort to file a complaint against the judge, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Moses was given an eight-year suspended sentence, and the judge in that case ordered that she serve the time on probation. Although the charge of tampering with evidence is one of the few felonies in Tennessee that causes someone to permanently lose their voting rights in the state, she told the Guardian last year that no one explained to her pleading guilty meant she’d be ineligible to vote. “They never mentioned anything about voting,” she told the outlet. “They never mentioned anything about not voting, being able to vote … none of that.” Moses went on to found a local Black Lives Matter chapter in Memphis and eventually launched a long-shot bid to become the city’s mayor in 2019. But it wasn’t until she found out she couldn’t be on the ballot that she realized she was still on probation and ineligible to vote. After the court confirmed that she was still on probation, Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin Johnson said she was “going to allow the criminal court to make an official determination of whether or not Ms. Moses’s sentence has been completed and expired,” according to WATN. What happened next changed Moses’s life. On Sept. 3, 2019, the Tennessee Department of Correction officials filled out an application for Moses to have her rights restored — and it was approved. Staff members from the Shelby County Election Commission also signed off on the application. Then, the next day, the state’s Department of Correction wrote a letter to the Shelby County Election Commission noting that they had made a mistake in restoring voting rights to Moses. Officials did not offer an explanation for the mistake. “This attestation was made in error,” wrote Lisa Helton, then the acting assistant commissioner for the Department of Correction.
The Shelby County Election Commission acknowledged the error in an August 2020 letter from Joe Young, the chief deputy administrator of elections, in which officials said Moses was notified that she remained permanently ineligible. “Very little of this has made any sense whatsoever,” Shelby County Election Administrator Linda Phillips told WREG last year. “The fact is she was convicted of a felony which has permanently terminated her right to vote.” But Moses has maintained no one ever told her that the good news she received in September 2019 was reversed the next day. She refused to take a plea deal for the charges this time because Moses said she had done nothing wrong, Anyanwu said. Yet she ended up being convicted last year. At her sentencing hearing in December, Ward, a 2004 appointee of then-Gov. Phil Bredesen (D), criticized Moses about how she had “voted six times as a convicted felon” after her 2015 conviction. Character witnesses supporting Moses remarked how “it would be a shame to waste her good traits which can be so beneficial to her family and her community by being in a jail,” according to local media. Anyanwu said Moses was floored when she found out about the six-year sentence. But she remains hopeful that the sentencing could be overturned on appeal, the attorney said. He is hoping her case can return to court by June. Until then, she remains optimistic that her fight isn’t done, he said. “She believes the sentencing was beyond the evidence that was presented,” he said. According to the D.A.’s office, Moses, 44, has 16 prior criminal convictions and committed the voting offense while on probation. Criminal Court Judge W. Mark Ward said that if she completes programs in prison and maintains good behavior, he would consider placing her on probation after nine months. On April 29, 2015, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence and forgery, both felonies, and misdemeanor counts of perjury, stalking, theft under $500 and escape. Moses was placed on probation for seven years. Public records also show Moses was detained by police in 2016 and charged with inciting to riot. Those charges were dropped. Moses was rendered infamous because of her felony convictions and lost her citizenship rights, including her right to vote. She was permanently deemed ineligible to register and vote in Tennessee because of the tampering with evidence conviction. Last November, proof at her trial showed that on Sept. 3, 2019, Moses filed a certificate of restoration and application for voter registration with the Shelby County Election Commission, falsely asserting that her sentence had expired and that she was eligible to register to vote. However, Moses was still serving her 2015 sentence on probation when she filed the restoration documents, the D.A.’s office said.
Pfft according to DonnyMost, the country is over identity politics. So we should just stop talking about this stuff and it will stop happening. Right? Right?
I brought this up in another thread how there are white males who have admitted to actually casting illegal votes, such as for their dead wives or dead fathers, and only getting probation.
There is stuff to be outraged by here. And I think it's ridiculous felons sometimes lose the vote in the first place. But I want to highlight this part that gets buried in the long article. The judge who presides over her conviction said she received the probation office. Their requests for further comment didn't get a reply and they don't bother to explain the case record either. Isnt it possible she did try to pull a fast one?
Whether she tried to pull a fast one or not to me the question is if such a severe punishment match the crime? Particularly when there are several examples of others who have actually committed voter fraud who are getting much lighter sentences.
That is a shame on their part this sham of a conviction should be overturned and she be set free. But these clowns truly committed fraud and got probation .
Really? You are a smart guy, how can she possibly fool the probation office? I know you like playing devil's advocate but this makes zero sense, the probation office has everything they need to make a decision, how could they possibly be fooled? How can she possibly pull a fast one?
The difference likely has a lot to do with her many past convictions. And maybe she didn't deserve them, but our system does use a heavy multiplier for repeat offenders. I'd have to go and read the court transcript to guess, which I'm not going to do. I'm not saying she did trick the probation office, but the judge says she did (probably in closing comments at the sentencing because it would be inappropriate to say that before the jury deliberated) and the article just glides on by without considering that angle. I'm not saying she is a terrible person who got what she deserved, which I don't know. I'm urging posters to read the news more critically and not fall for every slanted sob story that passes under their noses.
Yes justice is relative but even then this should be met with incredulity. Everyone including the prosecutors acknowledge that she didn't actually cast a false vote and also that officials didn't give her clear guidance. Contrast that with people who have knowing committed voter fraud. In one case one person gave an interview claiming that there was voter fraud when it was himself that committed the fraud. Whether Moses had a criminal record and these other people didn't the punishment still seems very excessive. This is one reason why many turned against things like automatic sentencing and three strikes because often you would end up with a very excessive penalty for what is a relatively minor crime. This case just shows that we sill have a big problem with unequal sentencing. Certainly everyone should view news critically and be very careful about jumping to conclusions. Looking at this case we should also consider the judges comments that she "tricked" the probation officer. What is the basis of that claim by the judge? Is this possibly a biased statement by the judge or a reflection of pique by the judge that led to the very harsh sentencing?
With 16 felony convictions, this lady should be extra careful knowing that any mistake will have extra consequences. Risk reward.
I don't see that mentioned in the article. It does mention in the article that Judge Ward said that if she served 9 months he might be willing to grant probation for good behavior so it sounds like the judge has a lot of latitude in sentencing.
No, you are not urging posters to read the news more critically This is what you posted. "There is stuff to be outraged by here. And I think it's ridiculous felons sometimes lose the vote in the first place. But I want to highlight this part that gets buried in the long article. The judge who presides over her conviction said she received the probation office. Their requests for further comment didn't get a reply and they don't bother to explain the case record either. Isnt it possible she did try to pull a fast one?" Where in that is you saying be more critical? You are saying we should give credence to the Judge, and if you had done your research, you would know that saying she tried to deceive the court is really reaching. How can you be asking posters to read the news more critically when you yourself seem to have ignored or not read many facts of the case and are just going by what the judge said? I ask again what fast could she have pulled?
Probably? How can you ask others to look at news more critically when you are not doing it yourself. Have you done any research into the actual case? You sure seem hell bent on giving this judge a pass without looking very critically at the case.
