The Arizona Supreme Court voted to strike down the legal fees won in the lower courts and unanimously voted that the defendants are not to be held responsible for the legal fees incurred while defending major fraud, and therefore the defendants did not bring frivolous lawsuits pertaining to the election. But, I see that this ruling is really much bigger than the legal fees. Think about what the judges said.
Justice John Lopez writes in the court’s opinion:
“We hold that the attorney fees award was improper because Petitioners’ claim was not groundless, thus obviating any need to determine whether the claim was made in the absence of good faith.”
The Arizona Mirror reports:
The lawsuit was filed more than a week after the 2020 election and argued that the state law requiring limited post-election hand-count audits conflicted with the state’s Elections Procedures Manual, making it illegal to select ballots for the audit from voting centers instead of by precinct.
State law requires each county to hand count 1% of all early ballots, as well as the ballots from 2% of precincts after each election. The Election Procedures Manual issued by the secretary of state permits counties that use voting centers instead of precincts, a list that includes Maricopa County, to hand count the ballots from 2% of voting centers instead.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELMaricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah dismantled the legal arguments that the AZGOP and its attorneys made. In addition to ignoring the law and the legislature’s intent when allowing for voting centers, Hannah said the Republican Party sought a remedy that the law doesn’t allow and waited far too long to file its suit.
The judge also said the party demonstrated it was not motivated by sincerely challenging a public policy, but instead by making a political case and sowing distrust about Arizona’s elections.
However, the Supreme Court opines:
“We cannot countenance the trial court’s rigid delineation between the motives underlying election litigation— ‘political’ reasons, which invite sanction under § 12-349, and ‘legal or factual’ justifications, which are permissible.” It continues, “The desire to vindicate a legal right—even if in the election context and animated exclusively by political motives—is not relevant, much less per se sanctionable. Courts should focus on the legal and factual merits of a claim and the party’s and attorney’s conduct in the course of the litigation.”
“The trial court emphasized in its ruling that Petitioners’ gravest transgression and ‘direct evidence of bad faith’ was ‘[u]ndercutting the election’s legitimacy by raising “questions,”‘ which it characterized as ‘a threat to the rule of law posing as an expression of concern.’ But ‘raising questions’ by petitioning our courts to clarify the meaning and application of our laws and noting the potential consequences of the failure to do so—particularly in the context of our elections—is never a threat to the rule of law, even if the claims are charitably characterized as ‘long shots.’”
They further slam the trial court, writing, “the trial court dismissively described Petitioners’ interpretation of § 16-602(B) as ‘barely colorable’ despite its avowed disinterest in the merits and lack of substantive analysis.”
John Hannah is the same partisan Judge who, as The Gateway Pundit previously reported, ordered the Cyber Ninjas firm to pay a $50K per day fine until it turns over records from their review of the Maricopa County forensic audit to the far-left Arizona Republic propaganda rag.
The Arizona GOP released a statement earlier celebrating the ruling:
We are pleased with the Supreme Court of Arizona’s decision to reverse and vacate the attorney fees awards previously levied against us. This ruling reaffirms the fundamental legal principle that raising questions about the interpretation and application of election laws is a legitimate use of the judicial system, not a groundless or bad faith action. We remain committed to ensuring that election laws are followed precisely, upholding the integrity of our electoral process.
