Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers ruled last week that prosecutors for Attorney General Kris Mayes left out key information when they presented their case against the alternate electoral slate for Donald Trump and several others associated with the electors, which “denied a substantial procedural right as guaranteed by Arizona law.” Myers previously ruled in February that there were enough grounds in the defendants’ motions to likely dismiss the prosecutions due to violating the First Amendment.
The defendants have maintained that the prosecution was politically motivated. Former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, one of the defendants, posted her support for the decision on X. “She & her team are trying to get the judge to STAY the decision (ie: hold it indefinitely) … so they can go around the law they are required to follow (rule 12.9 of criminal procedure) and they have the GALL to claim that the defendants (us) are not being harmed by this. WE HAVE BEEN HARMED EVERY DAY SINCE THIS BEGAN.”
Mayes is prosecuting the alternate slate of electors for alleged crimes such as forgery, claiming that creating an alternate slate was criminal. Myers remanded the case back to the grand jury because the jurors, who indicted 18 including Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman, were not provided with a copy of the 1887 Electoral Count Act (ECA). Defense attorneys argued that the ECA allowed for multiple slates of electors. It was amended afterwards in 2022 by Congress to restrict that, stating that the Vice President did not have substantive authority to reject slates of electors.
During the State Bar of California’s disbarment trial against Eastman, he presented testimony from numerous experts on the issue, including Berkeley constitutional law professor John Yoo. Yoo, who has published law review articles on the topic, testified about previous historical instances where Vice Presidents exercised their substantive authority when considering whether to accept alternate slates of electors. Yoo said there has been only one legal scholar ever who thought the Vice President did not have this authority before the 2022 amendment.
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