Tag: Pamela Moses

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D.A. Weirich: Moses Won’t be Retried

A February protest of the conviction of Pamela Moses (Credit: Paul Garner)

Amid a tangle of legal circumstances, the voter fraud case against Black Lives Matter activist Pamela Moses is no more.

District Attorney Amy Weirich announced on Friday that charges against Moses for an illegal attempt to vote were — “in the interests of judicial economy” — being dismissed.

There had been running controversy and a flurry of protests — both legal and streetwise — against Moses’ earlier conviction in criminal court for voter fraud and the severity of her prescribed punishment.

Judge Mark Ward, who had sentenced Moses to six years in prison after a trial in which she was accused of submitting false documents to the election commission, later awarded Moses the right to a new trial on the basis of newly reviewed evidence.

Part of that evidence was presumably a document from the state Department of Corrections which had erroneously stated that Moses was eligible to vote on the basis that her probation from a previous felony conviction had ended. Moses had presented this document to election authorities.

The department’s document was in error, however. Moses was still on probation at the time for her 2015 conviction on a variety of charges, including  tampering with evidence, forgery and misdemeanor charges of perjury, stalking, and theft under $500. Moses had entered a guilty plea on the charges.  

In announcing that her office would not go forward with prosecuting Moses in a new trial, Weirich said the total of 82 days in jail Moses had spent in jail were “sufficient,” and she noted that, on the basis of state law, Moses is “permanently barred from registering to vote or voting in Tennessee as a result of her 2015 conviction for tampering with evidence.” 

Steve Mulroy, one of three Democratic D.A. candidates vying in the party primary for the right to oppose Weirich in the August county election, issued this statement: “This case should never have been brought in the first place. But it’s reassuring to know that, after international press coverage, a court-ordered reversal, and months of sustained public protest, Amy Weirich will eventually do the right thing.”

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New Trial Ordered in Voting Fraud Case

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Pamela Moses, the Memphis activist sentenced to six years in prison for voting fraud, will get a new trial. 

Moses lost her voting rights with a conviction in 2015. However, she was working through proper channels to get those rights restored in 2019. Moses had her voter registration documents signed by the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) and the Shelby County Election Commission.

However, an error was made. A corrections officer mistakenly signed a document stating Moses’ probation was over, though it was not. So, she was not eligible to vote when she filed her papers to, once again, appear on the voting rolls here. 

For this, she was charged, convicted, and sentenced to six years and one day for illegally attempting to register to vote. Many decried the decision, saying the sentence was too harsh and unequal to sentences given to others, particularly white men, for the same crime. 

Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward ordered the new trial Friday. Ward presided over Moses’ 2019 trial. He wrote Friday that he does not disagree with the jury’s verdict against Moses. He said Moses likely knew she was still on probation while she was attempting to restore her voting rights, especially with a court order stating her probation would not be over until 2022, he said. 

“Based on this evidence, it was reasonable and legitimate for the jury to infer that [Moses] knew the representations on the form about her probation were untrue when she obtained the statement from the probation officer and when she attempted to use false information to register to vote,” Ward wrote in the order. 

The new trial comes as Ward said some evidence in the 2021 trial should not have been admitted. Also, Ward said prosecutors in the case failed to hand over an email to Moses’ attorney that could have possibly aided her defense. However, prosecutors said they had never seen the email in question before handed a copy of it by Moses’ attorney. Moses’ attorney said the failure to disclose it was not intentional. 

Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said her office was not to blame for the mistake.

“When reporters or political opportunists use the word ‘state’ they need to be crystal clear that the error was made by the [Tennessee Department of Corrections] and not any attorney or officer in the office of the Shelby County District Attorney.”

Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich

“The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) failed to turn over a necessary document in the case of Pamela Moses and therefore her conviction has been overturned by the judge,” Weirich said in a statement Friday. “When reporters or political opportunists use the word ‘state’ they need to be crystal clear that the error was made by the TDOC and not any attorney or officer in the office of the Shelby County District Attorney.”

Josh Spickler, executive director with the criminal reform advocacy group Just City, said Weirich’s office “has a well-documented record of failing to produce evidence that could benefit the accused.”

“Yet again, in a very high-profile case that has made national headlines, her office has failed to produce a critical document, and a judge has reversed a conviction,” Spickler said. “We can’t know how often this happens, but this is a clear pattern and it must be addressed. Our community deserves better than this.”

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Memphis Activist Wants Murder Charges for Cops Who Shot Banks

CREDIT: Chris McCoy

Chris McCoy

Memphis activist P. Moses before a march.

The officers who shot Martavious Banks in the back as he fled Monday night should be immediately indicted on attempted first degree murder charges, said a Black Lives Matter activist Thursday.  Facebook

Martavious Banks

Banks was shot in the back during a traffic stop Monday night. The officers who shot Banks turned off their body cameras before the shooting. The incident is now under investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Banks remains in critical condition at Regional One Health.

Pamela Moses, the founder of Rise Up Memphis and Black Lives Matter Memphis known as P. Moses, gathered with the family of Banks on Gil Street, where the traffic stop occurred, Thursday morning. She said Banks had had “threatening contact” with the officers who pulled him over and was fleeing the scene in self defense.

She called the officers, “two known criminals in the Memphis Police Department (MPD).” The officers took the law into their own hands, she said, and meted out justice “without the benefit of a trial or due process,” which goes against MPD policy, the Constitution, and state law.

“There was no trial that took place here on Gil Street,” Moses said.

She said “today we will hold the responsible accountable.” With that, she the officers who shot Banks should be indicted on attempted first-degree murder. If Banks dies, Moses suggested that charge be immediately elevated to first-degree murder.