Arizona high court rejects Horne's (R) bid to remove justice from education case

A political spat dating back to 2012 wasn’t enough to convince Arizona Supreme Court Justice Bill Montgomery to recuse himself from a lawsuit that could give state schools Superintendent Tom Horne the ability to crack down on multilingual education in public schools.

Last week, Horne filed a motion requesting that Montgomery step away from the case, saying that the former Maricopa County Attorney’s decision to prosecute him for campaign finance violations more than a decade ago risks impacting the outcome of the legal challenge. The Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct advises judges to recuse themselves when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” including when they have a personal bias against one of the parties involved in a lawsuit.

In 2012, Montgomery headed a legal effort against Horne, then the newly elected attorney general, over allegations of campaign finance violations. The accusations stemmed from an FBI probe that concluded Horne had illegally coordinated with an independent campaign committee set up by an aide to fund a last-minute attack ad against his Democratic rival. Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk later took over the case, and the state Supreme Court ultimately ruled that she violated Horne’s due process rights.

Horne argued that the fraught history between him and Montgomery, and, in particular, the justice’s vehement criticism of him at the time, warrants a recusal.


https://azmirror.com/briefs/arizona-high-court-rejects-hornes-bid-to-remove-justice-from-education-case/