Supreme Court Declines Kari Lake Lawyer’s Appeal Against Sanctions

By Staff Reporter |

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Kari Lake’s lawyer to overturn sanctions that arose from a lawsuit challenging Arizona’s voting machines.

Lake’s attorney, Andrew Parker, appealed a lower court ruling that ordered him to pay $122,000 in legal costs.

The sanctions were the result of a lawsuit to bar Arizona from using electronic voting machines, filed by Lake in April 2022 while she was a gubernatorial candidate. Lake was joined by Mark Finchem, who was a candidate for secretary of state. The pair sued the secretary of state at the time, now-Gov. Katie Hobbs, and the boards of supervisors for Maricopa and Pima counties.

Their complaint demanded that electronic voting machines not be used without making the system open to the public and subjecting it to security vetting.

Arizona District Court Judge John Tuchi dismissed the case several months later in August 2022, then fined Parker and the rest of Lake’s legal team for frivolous claims in 2023. Tuchi accused Parker and the rest of Lake’s legal team of acting recklessly. Tuchi said in the latter ruling that non-excessive sanctions were necessary consequences to deter claims lacking adequate factual or legal basis.

“Failing to impose meaningful sanctions here might very well encourage others to follow suit by lending their credibility to documents filed in court without facing any real consequence if their certifications prove hollow or incomplete,” said Tuchi. “Further, any monetary sanction imposed should not be so significant as to dissuade other legal experts from providing advice or assistance in litigation out of fear of sanctions, provided they abide by the requirements of the rules in signing filings and entering appearances in those matters.”

Lake and Finchem continued fighting for the case through the appeals system; it went all the way to the Supreme Court, but they declined to take up the case.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the sanctions last year.

Lake’s attorney argued in filings that the sanctions were punishment for “politically disfavored litigation” and would stymie “creative, aggressive, or novel claims and arguments,” especially in cases where the judge may have opposing political views.

An opposition brief filed by counsel for Maricopa County rejected that argument.

“The district court sanctioned Petitioners because they lied to the court,” stated the county’s counsel. “Their filings made ‘false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions’; ‘their claims for relief did not have an adequate factual or legal basis grounded in a reasonable prefiling inquiry’ in violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; and, they ‘acted at least recklessly in unreasonably and vexatiously multiplying the proceedings by seeking a preliminary injunction based on Plaintiffs’ frivolous claims, in violation of 28 U.S.C. §1927.’”

Thomas Galvin, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said the Supreme Court’s decision was good news for voters.

“The Supreme Court declined certiorari in the sanctions case from Lake/Finchem,” said Galvin. “The BOS continues to stand up for election integrity.”

Another win for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on behalf of YOU, the voter. Per @Law360 , the BOS got a win at SCOTUS today. The Supreme Court declined certiorari in the sanctions case from Lake/Finchem. The BOS continues to stand up for election integrity. pic.twitter.com/ecF01FRYtQ

— Thomas Galvin: Maricopa County Brd of Supervisors (@ThomasGalvin) October 13, 2026

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