Hm, if you manage to trigger an assert() in the C code by writing some evil
Python code, the C code is considered broken (unless it was using ctypes or
one or two other explicit "void-the-warranty" exceptions).

Maybe someone who has worked more with the C code recently could help you
dig into this more; my memory is unreliable when it comes to these details.
Maybe assert() calls are disabled by default? In general the error "...
returned a result with an error set" means there's a problem at the C level
where a function should have either returned an object or returned NULL
with the per-thread exception state set, but it was found to return an
object *and* set the exception state. IIRC only debug mode checks for that,
so such a bug occasionally creeps into the code. But you shouldn't assume
everything is fine until you've tracked down the cause.