State Sen. Shawn Still followed legal advice when he cast an electoral college vote for Donald Trump in 2020 and walked away thinking he had done the right thing, the legislator’s lawyer said Wednesday.
“Shawn Still should never have been charged in this case,” defense attorney Tom Bever told a Fulton County judge.
Last August, Still, Trump and 17 others were indicted in the election interference case. He is charged with racketeering, impersonating a public officer, two counts of forgery and three other felonies.
Still, who owns a swimming pool construction business, is the only sitting elected official indicted in the Fulton County case. But the charges relate to actions he took before he ran for office in 2022, when he served as one of 16 Republican presidential electors who cast votes for Trump, even though Biden had been declared the winner here.
On Wednesday, his lawyers asked Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to dismiss five of the counts against him.
During the motions hearing, Bever delivered what could turn out to be his opening statement should Still stand trial. The attorney noted that Still was qualified to be a GOP elector nine months before he and 15 others cast votes for Trump on Dec. 14, 2020, in a committee room at the state Capitol while the official Democratic electors cast votes upstairs for President Joe Biden. That was long before Trump challenged the election results.
Prosecutors charged only three of the 16 GOP electors: Still, former state GOP chair David Shafer and former Coffee County GOP Chair Cathleen Latham. A number of the GOP electors who were not charged were given immunity deals by the District Attorney’s Office.
Those chosen to be GOP electors were upstanding members of the community, Bever said. “It’s not exactly rounding up the usual suspects to commit a crime or fraud.”
Moreover, casting electoral votes at the state Capitol “is hardly the setting for a racketeering act,” he said. “I’ve never seen a fraud perpetrated in front of the public” with a court reporter, a videographer and the news media in attendance.
Yet Still faces a count of racketeering for what he did during the 26-minute meeting, Bever said. “Zero before. Zero afterwards.”
The electors were told by Ray Smith, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, that their vote was needed to protect Trump’s ability to return to office if he succeeded in overturning Biden’s victory in a then-pending lawsuit, Bever said.
But prosecutors have said the electors participated in an illegal scheme to pressure state legislators and Vice President Mike Pence to overturn a legitimate election.
During the arguments, prosecutor Donald Wakeford said Still is not accused of being a qualified GOP elector.
“He’s accused of being a presidential elector,” Wakeford said. “He was holding himself out as a presidential elector. It’s a discrete term, which he undoubtedly was not at the time.”
Bever and co-counsel Cole McFerren asked McAfee to dismiss counts against Still accusing him of impersonating a public officer, making false statements and writings, forgery and attempting to file false documents. McAfee said he would issue orders on the motions at a later date.
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