Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes' "fake electors" prosecution faces a legal hurdle: A law that Republican state legislators amended two years ago with the specific goal of shutting it down.
We know that, because that's what the two Republican leaders of the Legislature said in a 23-page "friend of the court" brief filed in late July.
"The Legislature was keenly cognizant of the burgeoning threat posed by politically motivated prosecutions," according to Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma.
"The indictment in this case presents precisely the concerns that animated the 2022 amendments."
The law was updated just 18 months after Trump allies tried to overturn election results in several states, including Arizona.
The "politically motivated prosecutions" were being brought at the time by the U.S. Department of Justice against the Jan. 6 rioters.
While not mentioned in the brief, the fake electors in Arizona were also a potential target for prosecutors.
The statute - a so-called anti-SLAPP law - is designed to stifle politically motivated prosecutions of free speech.
The Arizona law is being tested for the first time in the high-stakes fake electors case.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen wrestled with attorneys' hypotheticals involving the anti-SLAPP law during 13 hours of courtroom arguments last week on two defense motions to dismiss the case.
The questions often turned on whether the law would allow guilty people to go free if the alleged criminal acts were protected as political speech.
"The relief potentially granted is extraordinary," Cohen told one defense attorney.
"The goal is not to allow guilty people to be free. It's to prioritize the Constitution for all over the impact on one."
