ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV

The justices tossed a claim by state Sen. Jake Hoffman, one of 11 people indicted last year on charges ranging from fraud to conspiracy after they falsely claimed to be Arizona’s official 2020 presidential electors. Hoffman had argued that Andrew Jacobs should not be on a three-judge panel deciding what could be a crucial issue in determining whether the charges will go to trial. No reason was given for the order.

The high court’s decision affirmed a ruling by David Gass, the chief judge of the appellate court, that the donations by Jacobs, given before he was placed on the bench, did not affect his ability to be impartial. Nor was Gass concerned that one of those donations came after Mayes made public statements about guilt of the fake electors, but before she was elected attorney general and long before she got a state grand jury to indict Hoffman and others.

The Court of Appeals, with Jacobs on the panel, will decide, as the defendants are arguing, whether Mayes brought the charges to suppress their First Amendment rights.

Maricopa County Superior Court judge Sam Myers ruled earlier this year that the defendants provided sufficient evidence to make that argument. But he withheld a final decision on whether the charges should be thrown out.

Mayes responded by asking the Court of Appeals to review Myers’ decision. And that resulted in Hoffman seeking to have Jacobs removed from the panel.

The indictment charges Hoffman and 10 other Republicans with committing fraud by preparing documents and sending them to Washington, D.C. after the 2020 election falsely declaring that Donald Trump had won the popular vote in Arizona and that they should be the ones whose electoral votes were counted. Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 10,000 votes in Arizona and the official electors were in fact his slate.

Also indicted were others in the Trump orbit, including his chief of staff during his first term in the White House, accused of being part of the scheme. Trump himself was named an unindicted co-conspirator.

The defendants have said they did nothing wrong and simply prepared the documents in case litigation would show that Trump actually won. But the indictment says the move here — and in other states — was part of a larger plan to deny Biden the necessary 270 electoral votes he needed, throwing the decision on the race to Congress.

Before the case can go to trial, there’s the question of the state’s anti-SLAPP law, short for Strategic Law Against Public Participation.

It is generally seen as a way to bar civil lawsuits designed to silence free speech. But the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2022 — when there was first talk about indicting the fake electors — expanded the statute to cover criminal prosecutions.

Attorney Michael Columbo, who is representing Hoffman, said there’s evidence to show Mayes had a “retaliatory motive’’ in seeking the indictment.

In July 2022 — while campaigning to be elected attorney general — she made a statement that the fake electors had committed a crime. A month later, she referred to their actions as a “criminal conspiracy to overturn the (election) results.’’ Mayes also commented that the false electors were “the people directly tied to the Jan. 6 insurrection.’’

Myers ruled in February that the defendants had provided enough evidence to conclude they might be entitled to anti-SLAPP protection. That sent the case to the appeals court, leading to the question of whether Jacobs could be impartial.

Columbo said Jacobs made multiple donations to Democratic campaigns in Arizona, including a $250 contribution to Mayes on June 18, 2022, and an identical donation on Aug. 11, 2022.

“Notably, Judge Jacobs’ second contribution followed Mayes’ statements about the electors that Sen. Hoffman raised in his anti-SLAPP motion,’’ Columbo said.

Columbo said the contributions indicated that Jacobs supported Mayes’ platform, including bringing criminal charges against Hoffman and the others. He said Jacob’s impartiality “might reasonably be questioned,� or “created, at a minimum, an appearance of partiality.’’

Gass, in the ruling just upheld by the Supreme Court, tossed the request to disqualify Jacobs.

He said there is a question of whether rules about disqualifying judges apply to appellate judges. Gass also said Hoffman “offers nothing more than bare allegations of bias and prejudice that do not overcome the presumption of impartiality.’’

There’s also the fact that Jacobs was still in private law practice at the time of the donations. But Gass said even if that were not the case, nothing in ethical rules governing the conduct of judges prohibits them from donating to candidates and political organizations.