A federal judge preserved Harris County’s misdemeanor bail agreement. An appeal is underway.

Aqua RichJo| September 25, 2026 Crystal Mason cast a provisional ballot in 2016. It was never counted. The Fort Worth woman was still convicted of illegal voting, sentenced to five years in prison and left to fight the case for nearly a decade. Now her acquittal stands. On September 24, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed prosecutors’ request to review the ruling that cleared Mason. The court said it had improvidently granted review, meaning it should not have taken

Texas has until December 31, 2029, to install air conditioning in every state prison under a federal court order issued this week. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found that extreme heat in uncooled prisons violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He ordered prison officials to begin a plan immediately and report their progress to the court every six months.