Good, but this whole thing was an enraging travesty and in no way makes things right.
Hervis Rogers
Voter fraud charges against Hervis Rogers, who garnered widespread attention for waiting hours in line to vote at a Houston polling location during the March 2020 presidential primary, have been dismissed.
Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered Rogers’ arrest in July 2021 on charges that he voted while on parole. Over a year later, after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reiterated that the attorney general doesn’t have the ability to unilaterally prosecute election crimes, a district court judge has dropped the two counts of illegal voting against Rogers.
“I am thankful that justice has been done,” Rogers said in a statement.
After serving time for a 1995 burglary conviction, Rogers had been out on parole since 2004. His parole ended in June 2020. In Texas, knowingly voting while on parole or probation is a second-degree felony, which could result in up to 20 years in prison. But Rogers said he wasn’t aware of his ineligibility, and advocates pointed to the fact that he had waited for six hours to vote — while working two jobs, including one that starts at 6 a.m. — as evidence of this.
Rogers is over 60 years old, so a conviction could have resulted in what amounted to a life sentence.
“It has been horrible to go through this, and I am so glad my case is over. I look forward to being able to get back to my life,” he added in the statement.
See here for the background. As a reminder, Hervis Rogers was initially jailed on a $100,000 bond – which is higher than what is often assessed on murder suspects – in Montgomery County. Not Harris County, where he voted, but Montgomery because Ken Paxton figured he’d have a better shot at conviction there. Literally everything about this was wrong, and it’s only because the Court of Criminal Appeals actually applied the state constitution that an even larger miscarriage of justice was avoided. Now if there were justice, Hervis Rogers would be able to sue not only the state of Texas but Ken Paxton personally for the needless suffering inflicted on him. None of that is going to happen, but the one thing we can do is vote Ken Paxton out of office, and never give him the chance to do this to someone else. The Chron has more.