Maricopa Madness

[ABNARTY]

You can’t make this stuff up.

Don’t you always wonder how these judges get picked for cases around the country?  For example, how was it that an Obama Judge was picked to review Trump Election cases in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan?  Note there were enough electoral college votes in these three states to give President Trump his election win.
In Arizona it was reported that it was an Obama Judge who threw Sidney Powell’s case out:

Powell’s team also filed a temporary restraining order (pdf) seeking to immediately block Ducey from delivering the certified election results to the electoral college while the court hears the case. Arizona certified its presidential election results on Nov. 30.

Judge Diane Humetewa threw out the lawsuit on Wednesday, saying that its allegations “are sorely wanting of relevant or reliable evidence” and that it sought extraordinary relief.

Attorney and Professor David Clements shared in this presentation for Regent University that Judge Humetewa never provided Powell an opportunity to present her case and had her verdict completed a day after the attorneys were called in present their cases.  This judge likely had her mind made up before she even saw the case:

We are not sure how these judges were selected for these cases but we suspect that it was not a random event that they were.

This leads us to Arizona today:
We received information on how Judge Martin was picked for the election court case in Arizona after Judge Coury recused himself on Sunday.  Judge Martin, you may recall, was appointed by former Governor Janet Napolitano.

Our reporter made a couple of phone calls to determine who chose Napolitana-appointed Judge Martin to handle this election case in Arizona.


The first call made was to the office of Judge Pamela Gates.  It apparently is currently her responsibility to appoint judges in civil cases in the state.  Here is a portion of Judge Gates’ bio from the State’s website:

Judge Pamela Gates was appointed by Governor Jan Brewer in September 2009 to serve on the Maricopa County Superior Court. Judge Gates currently serves as the Civil Presiding Judge. Prior to her rotation to the Civil Department in June 2018, Judge Gates served as the Associate Presiding Judge of the Criminal Department.

A call was made to Judge Gate’s office, the woman who answered the phone said that it is Judge Gates’ responsibility to appoint judges to civil cases in Arizona, except for election and related audit cases.  This lady shared that for the current election audit case, it was Judge Thomason who selected Judge Martin for the case.

So a call was made to Judge Thomason’s office.  The lady who answered the phone there said that for the current case Judge Thomason did not select the judge for the case.  She said that the judge’s name was provided to their office and Judge Thomason released the information on who the judge was.  The woman shared that for recusals it’s the Presiding Judge who appoints the judge.  She then shared that it was Judge Gates who provided Judge Martin’s name.

Judge Gates is married to Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates.  Here is a state financial disclosure where Judge Gates notes her relationship with Bill Gates:

The American Bar Association has a code of conduct that all attorneys must abide by.  A judge must avoid any impropriety or appearance of impropriety.

CANON 1: A judge shall uphold and promote the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.

Judge Gates has a clear conflict, if not an obvious appearance of conflict, in any cases related to Maricopa County elections and audit.  She never should have selected Judge Martin for the current case.  She should be recused and Judge Martin should be recused and a new independent judge should pick an independent judge to oversee this case.
So Judge Pamela Gates, the wife of one of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates, chose who was to preside over the election audit case.  This same Bill Gates is part of the group that has done everything it could to prevent an audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 Election results. His wife just appointed a Janet Napolitano appointed judge to the Maricopa County election audit case.

Source

So if I got this right, the judge who had to recuse herself to avoid impropriety got to choose who would replace her? How does that promote independence, integrity, and impartiality? She will simply replace herself with someone of the same cloth. It will result in the same outcome. 

This last year or so has really left me with a sickening outlook on the judiciary. For the nay-sayers on here, it has nothing to do with the election. It has everything to do with due process, a fair trial, and election transparency.  Without those things, everyone is screwed.