Supreme Court rejects Crosby’s appeal over legislative immunity in election certification case

Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby cannot claim he has legislative immunity as he defends himself in a felony case stemming from his refusal to certify the 2022 election after the Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear his appeal.

Last year, the appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Crosby was not protected by legislative immunity when he and fellow Republican Supervisor Peggy Judd refused to certify the results of Cochise County’s election by the deadline set in state law. Supervisor Ann English, a Democrat, was the sole member who dissented and voted to proceed with certification. 

Crosby hoped the high court would take up the matter, but it declined to do so without comment.

GOP county supervisors across Arizona faced pressure to not certify the 2022 election results based on evidence-free claims by Republican candidates of election fraud in Maricopa County, where support for Democratic candidates like Katie Hobbs and Kris Mayes led them to narrow victories. The Cochise County Board of Supervisors only certified the results after being ordered by a judge to do so, but after the Nov. 28 certification deadline, putting the county’s votes at risk of not being counted. 

In 2023, Judd pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of refusing to perform the duty of an election officer, a misdemeanor, as part of a plea deal. Judd retained her right to vote and her seat on the county board and was sentenced to 90 days of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay a $550 fine. 

However, Crosby has continued to fight the felony charges against him, asking a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to dismiss them, arguing that his actions were protected by legislative immunity and that they were improperly filed in Maricopa County. 

That motion to dismiss was denied and Crosby asked the Court of Appeals to reverse it, but his appeal was rejected after the appeals court agreed with the lower court and unanimously concluded that legislative immunity does not apply to the board’s failure to certify election results. 

A jury trial for Crosby’s case has faced delays as he has tried to get the case dismissed. 

The rural county board of supervisors has long been a hotbed for election conspiracy theories. The same year they delayed certification, the supervisors attempted to conduct a full hand-count of ballots citing unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and voting machine manipulation. 

The hand-count was blocked by a Cochise County judge who ruled it was illegal under state law. 

Dennis Wilenchik, the lawyer representing Crosby, did not respond to a request for comment.