Ricky Vaughn meme account restored to X after court overturns Douglass Mackey conviction

Douglass Mackey's X account, with the handle @Ricky_Vaughn99, has been reinstated to X after Mackey's conviction under the Biden administration was overturned and the case was dismissed on appeal. He had posted a meme in 2016 encouraging Hilary Clinton to vote by text and the Biden administration charged him with conspiracy to violate voting rights.

The account had not been active since 2016, when the social media platform was still under the leadership of founder Jack Dorsey. The meme account had been at the center of the case against him, in which he was charged over the meme that encouraged Hillary Clinton supporters to "vote" by text. He was convicted in 2023, but his 7-month sentence was stayed, pending an appeal. 

On Wednesday, the Second Circuit court overturned his conviction, ruling that Mackey's case was that "the evidence was insufficient to prove that he knowingly agreed to join the charged conspiracy. We agree. Accordingly, we REVERSE Mackey’s conviction and REMAND the case to the district court with instructions to enter a judgment of acquittal."

"I would like to thank God, thank my family, thank my beautiful wife, attorney Andrew Frisch, the incredible attorneys at Jones Day, and YOU—the friends who prayed and donated and spread the word since day one," Mackey wrote in response to the decision.

Defense lawyer for Mackey Andrew Frisch said of the victory in the case, “We are overjoyed that the Second Circuit has vindicated Mr. Mackey and validated the arguments in his defense that we made at trial," per the New York Times.

The post from Mackey depicted a women holding a sign that said, "African Americans for Clinton" as well as text that said "Avoid the line. Vote from home," and then Mackey added the hashtag #ImWithHer. Prosecutors alleged that there were 4,900 texts to the phone number that was posted in the meme. They could not find evidence, however, that anyone had been fooled by the meme into beleiving they could vote via text.

Judge Livingston wrote in his ruling, “The government presented no evidence at trial that Mackey’s tweets tricked anyone into failing properly to vote," and said that the meme was not sufficient to prove he was involved in a criminal conspiracy to interfere with the election. As for the communication Mackey had with friends online about memes et al, the judge said Mackey was just being "silly" online.