American Oversight Asks Court to Order Cochise County Supervisors to Answer Questions Under Oath

On Thursday, American Oversight asked Judge Stephen C. Moss to compel deposition testimony from Cochise County Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd in the organization’s lawsuit seeking public records related to election administration. 

During depositions in early August, Crosby and Judd refused to answer essentially all questions — including, for example, whether they had other electronic devices in the room with them during the deposition — on the grounds of potential self-incrimination. Crosby and Judd are facing conspiracy and election interference charges for having delayed the canvass and certification of the 2022 election in the county.

American Oversight’s motion to compel their testimony argues that Crosby and Judd cannot assert “blanket” Fifth Amendment objections because in a civil lawsuit, the amendment does not permit a witness to refuse to answer deposition questions when a truthful answer opens no door to self-incrimination. The motion asks the judge to order Crosby and Judd to answer five “yes/no” questions concerning whether they searched their personal email accounts and cell phones for records responsive to American Oversights’ requests, or, alternatively, to infer that they did not.

Crosby and Judd first attracted national attention after the 2022 election, when they voted 2–1 (over a dissent by Supervisor Ann English) to order a hand count of the ballots, then refused to certify the election results. Crosby and Judd said they refused to certify the election results based on the false claim that the county’s electronic tabulators had not been certified. Judd also said that the certification delay was in protest over Maricopa County’s election, which was a target of . 

Arizona’s attorney general sued, and a court ordered them to certify the results. Later, Crosby and Judd were indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy and interference with an election officer, both felonies.

In November 2022, American Oversight submitted several requests to Cochise County and the supervisors under the Arizona Public Records Law seeking public records related to the Board of Supervisors’ changes to county election administration, litigation over hand counts, and refusal to certify the 2022 elections. American Oversight sued in January 2024 after the county and individual supervisors failed to hand over any public records. 

As part of that lawsuit, American Oversight took video-recorded depositions of Crosby and Judd in early August. American Oversight’s questions in those depositions focused on the individual supervisors’ failures to comply with the public records law, not their alleged criminal activity.