U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ordered an evidentiary hearing for Cathleen Latham and David Shafer, who both posed as fake electors and were charged among 17 others as part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's criminal investigation, which came to a head with a grand jury indictment earlier this month.
Another alternate elector, Republican Georgia Sen. Shawn Still, has also requested to have his case tried in federal court. Other defendants, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, began the trend last week to have their cases removed from state court.
To have state cases transferred to federal court, defendants must show they were federal officers performing federal duties at the time of an alleged crime and typically must raise a plausible federal defense. In the case of the alternate electors, they say that they are immune from state prosecution because state laws are preempted by federal laws and they were acting in a federal capacity at the time of their alleged crime.
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