SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah Republican Party lawyer wants the federal judge who ruled against the GOP in the contentious legal fight over the state's new election law recused from the case.
Attorney Marcus Mumford also filed a notice Friday to appeal U.S. District Judge David Nuffer's decision to strike and not reconsider his motion for attorneys' fees and costs in the first of two lawsuits the party brought against the state. The appeal goes to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
Further, Mumford carried the recently concluded Jeremy Johnson criminal trial over which Nuffer presided into the election law case. Mumford, who represented one of Johnson's co-defendants, filed declarations from two jurors who say Nuffer treated Mumford unfairly in that trial.
Mumford contends that Nuffer's "public criticisms" of him during the Johnson case influenced the judge's decision to not give him more time to argue for attorneys' fees or reconsider his earlier denial. Mumford wants another judge to hear his arguments for reconsideration of the legal fees.
Nuffer threatened to remove Mumford from the election law case for missing 16 or 17 court filing deadlines. He ordered Mumford to explain why he shouldn't be held in contempt or sanctioned.
Mumford countered that the judge wasn't treating him and lawyers for the state equally, and that he exaggerated the missed deadlines.
One of the jurors in the Johnson trial wrote in an affidavit that Nuffer treated the prosecution calmly and professionally but dealt with Mumford in a manner that was "brusque, short of patience, and at times downright embarrassingly nasty."
The jury convicted Johnson on eight counts of making false statement to a bank in connection with his onetime lucrative internet marketing company, iWorks. It acquitted him of 78 fraud charges. The jury found Mumford's client, Scott Leavitt, not guilty on all charges.
Nuffer twice ruled against the Utah Republican Party in its legal challenge of the election law known as SB54.
Last week, the judge ruled that candidates may choose to access the primary election ballot by either signature gathering, or through Utah’s more traditional caucus and convention route, or both. In a December decision, Nuffer also upheld the law other than the requirement that political parties hold open primaries. Only registered Republicans may vote in GOP primaries.
The state Republican Party is considering appealing Nuffer's ruling.
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