A Maricopa County judge denied several motions to dismiss the charges filed against Arizona’s so-called fake electors in the case brought by state Attorney General Kris Mayes.
The defendants in the case, all Republicans, stand accused of fraud and other felonies for signing and submitting a document falsely claiming President Donald Trump defeated former President Joe Biden in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers rejected a claim by defendant Tyler Bowyer’s attorneys, who argued the state did not have the authority to bring the case in the first place. They claimed the federal government has the sole power to resolve disputes over presidential electors, arguing that power pre-empted the state’s ability to prosecute.
Myers also denied a claim that the indictment, handed down by an Arizona grand jury in May 2024, failed to allege the defendants committed any actual crimes.
Attorneys for the defendants had asked Myers to dismiss the case under an Arizona court rule that calls for a case to be dropped if the “defendant can admit to all the allegations charged ... and still not have committed a crime,” according to Arizona Supreme Court precedent. But Myers found the defendants called into question whether prosecutors had enough evidence to support the allegations made in the indictment, rather than proving the indictment itself was faulty.
And he rejected an argument by Sen. Jake Hoffman’s attorneys, who claimed the activities alleged in the indictment are protected by the U.S. Constitution.
“[T]he indictment seeks to punish alleged crimes of forgery, conspiracy, and fraud — none of which are constitutionally protected activities," Myers wrote in the March 20 order.
Myers also rejected an attempt by Jim Lamon, a former U.S. Senate candidate accused of signing fraudulent documents claiming Trump won Arizona in 2020, to stop Mayes and her office from speaking to the press about the ongoing case — though he left the door open to issuing that order at a later date.
The defendant’s attorneys had alleged Mayes and her deputies had made inappropriate statements to the media about the case in an attempt to sway public opinion, which could influence a future jury pool.
“We've shown that there's a clear pattern of every time there's some development in the case, rather than let it play out in court where it belongs, the prosecution rushes to the media and condemns the defendants using hyperbole and rhetoric that is divorced not only from the facts, but from what they've even charged them with,” Jesse Franklin-Murdock, an attorney for Hoffman, told Myers in February.
Myers acknowledged that “there has been significantly more content discussed about this case with the media than most cases currently pending at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office,” due to the heightened public interest in the case.
But Myers noted that, since Lamon filed his motion, Mayes’ office has limited its public comments about the case.
“However, a change of circumstances could convince this Court to reconsider its position on this issue,” he wrote.
A separate motion to dismiss the case under an Arizona law designed to protect First Amendment rights and prevent politically motivated prosecutions is still pending.
