Tag: anti-SLAPP law

Judge Says John Eastman, Others in Arizona AG’s Prosecution of Alternate Electors Have Grounds to Dismiss Due to Targeting First Amendment Rights

Rachel Alexander

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers said on Monday during a hearing in Attorney General Kris Mayes’ prosecution of the 2020 alternate electoral slate for Trump and their associates that there were enough grounds in the defendants’ motions to dismiss to likely dismiss the prosecutions due to violating the First Amendment. Myers, who previously clerked for a Democratic Senator, and who was appointed to the bench by Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano, made the decision without hearing oral arguments due to the strength of the defendants’ arguments, he said.

Myers was addressing motions to dismiss based on the state’s anti-SLAPP law filed by former State Senator Anthony Kern and Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Several of the other defendants filed similar motions, including Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman and former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward. State Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) and then-House Speaker Ben Toma filed an Amicus Curiae brief in support of Ward’s motion.

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Arizona Supreme Court Intervenes in Recorder’s Defamation Case Against Kari Lake; Puts Proceedings on Hold to Consider Early Appeal

Rachel Alexander

The Arizona Supreme Court has placed a defamation lawsuit that Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer filed against Kari Lake on hold. The court said no more proceedings in the lawsuit can take place in the trial court until Richer responds to Lake’s Petition for Review she filed with the higher court. While higher courts don’t usually intervene until a case has made its way through trial court proceedings, Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law  First Amendment Clinic joined Lake in her defense requesting that the lawsuit be dismissed, a sign the clinic may believe Richer’s lawsuit is without merit. 

Lake told The Arizona Sun Times, “This is a censorship case — pure and simple. The government official suing me is being represented by Obama- and Soros-linked attorneys. Stephen Richer ran banana-Republic style elections in Maricopa County and he doesn’t want to be held accountable. His use of tyrannical lawfare is an assault on our freedom of speech and is election interference designed to distract me from the very important United States Senate race where I am the leading candidate. He is OK with the First Amendment being trampled so he can save face.”

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