New judge assigned to legislative initiative on retaining judges

A new judge has been appointed to hear a case challenging a legislative initiative that would end most judicial elections in Arizona.

Progress Arizona files lawsuit to prevent Senate Resolution 1044 from being placed on the ballot.

The group argues that SCR 1044 is unconstitutional because it has a misleading name and contains more than one amendment to the state constitution.

The provision states that only judges who have been convicted of a crime, declared bankruptcy or found to have failed to uphold judicial standards should be detained.

“It basically eliminates the retention issue, but it also really changes the composition of the Judicial Performance Review Board, and those are separate amendments that need to be voted on separately,” said Jim Barton, an attorney with Progress Arizona.

Kory Langhofer, an attorney representing legislative leaders intervening in the case, disputes the allegations in the lawsuit.

“The title of the bill — the Judicial Accountability Act of 2024 — is exactly what it is. It’s about judicial accountability,” Langhofer said. “As far as the issue of the separate amendment, I think when the court considers it, it will find that everything is sufficiently related and that it qualifies for a vote.”

Currently, trial court judges in Maricopa, Pima, Pinal and Coconino counties, appellate court judges and Supreme Court justices are subject to Arizona’s run-off election system.

Citing this set of circumstances, Judge Joseph Welty, presiding judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, assigned the case to Judge John Napper, a Yavapai County judge.

In rural Arizona counties like Yavapai, judges are elected. So Napper is not subject to the retention election process that the referendum initiative seeks to change.

Welty noted in his order that the case still belonged to Maricopa County and assigned it to Napper as visiting judge.

Barton said he thought Napper was a good choice and that reassigning him would resolve a potential conflict of interest.

“He wants there to be no appearance of impropriety,” Barton said of Welty assigning the case to Napper. “So that makes sense to me.”

Langhofer said removing a case from a judge facing a retention election was good practice. “And I don’t know of anything that Judge Napper said that would suggest a bias either way, so it seems like the case is where it should be,” he said.

The parties are in the process of informing Napper and expect a date for oral argument to be set.

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