Former USG senator Isabelle Murray speaks during a hearing before the ASASU Supreme Court appealing her impeachment from the Senate. The court rejected her appeal 4-0. (Photo by Ben Moffat)
After 10 minutes of deliberation, four judges of the ASASU Supreme Court returned to the room on Friday to announce that they had unanimously rejected the impeachment appeal of Isabelle Murray.
“In the case of Isabelle Murray vs. USG Senate Tempe the court has voted four to zero, the vote stands,” Justice Tyler Mastin said. “I’m sorry, you have been impeached."
The verdict stated that Murray should have initiated a revote at the Oct. 21 proceeding where she was impeached.
"It says in Robert’s Rules (of order) that you can call for a revote and you did not, and it’s not up to us to call a revote for you," Mastin said. "And with that we also set a precedent effective immediately for all campuses in case of an impeachment... The person accused cannot vote for themselves and the sum total will be subtracted by that one. “
During the impeachment processing, USG Parliamentarian Saumya Gupta announced that the motion of impeachment had failed. However, about 10 seconds later he said that someone changed the vote and the impeachment had passed, Murray said.
USG Senate President Will Smith speaks during a hearing before the ASASU Supreme
Court in which former senator Isabelle Murray appealed her impeachment from the
Senate. The court rejected Murray’s appeal 4-0. (Photo by Ben Moffat)
“The impeachment has failed and it means the vote was closed,” she said. “And that should’ve been the end of it.”
After some confusion, someone at the impeachment proceeding called for division – a process when those who voted raise their hands to represent their votes for clarification.
Murray said someone possibly changed his or her vote after Smith announced that the motion to impeach has failed and maintained this vote through the division.
“The fact that he called for division means that he believes there was a mistake,” she said. “He said he closed the vote but it can’t be verified.”
Murray said the the verdict left her upset and confused because the decision wasn’t based on logic, but more on the personal opinions.
“Why would I make motion to impeach myself?” she said. “It’s not in my best interest. I think it’s kind of victim-blaming.”
Murray and her supporters, former senators Nicolas Parra and Jordan Hibbs, said the newly set precedent wasn’t well justified and would leave a college with one vote less represented.
“They didn’t give a reason for making that rule, “ Hibbs said. “There was nothing in there that would suggest that you should not be able to have a vote.”
Senate President Will Smith, presenting the defense, said the reason for the change of the motion status was the delay in the system. Smith said senators are allowed to vote or change their decision during a certain period of time, but a delay in the software did not show that someone had switched their vote until after the first announcement was made.
Although the technology Tempe USG uses can have delays, it’s free of bias, Smith said.
“What Miss Murray is presenting is an idea that the situation is perceived as biased, but the technology is not biased," he said. "It’s black and white."
Smith also said the change in the results ignited some confusion among the senators and they decided to go call for division as a way to clarify the situation.
“This is not a result of us not abiding the bylaws or Robert’s Rules of Order," he said. "In fact, we did things by the book. There was a confusion, we called division. “
ASASU Supreme Court justice Tatiana Jenkins (right) asks a question during a hearing in which former senator Isabelle Murray appealed her impeachment from the Senate. The court rejected Murray’s appeal 4-0. (Photo by Ben Moffat)
Both Parra and Murray said the judges' impartiality is questionable because they are not a third party.
“The Supreme Court is under the jurisdiction of USG, so it potentially has a lot of bias,” Parra said. “They are appointed by presidents, they are under the branch of USG which is also making the justice very far-fetched.“
Parra said they are arguing the impeachment because the vote had been announced as final and it shouldn’t have been retracted.
“Afterwards, they retracted that (the announcement), which you’re not allowed to do in a legal proceeding," he said. "You can’t retract a statement and say ‘Oh, just kidding, we messed up.' Will Smith should have invalidated that vote, or vetoed it or done something to revote.”
Gladly congratulating each other, the defense and the supporters seemed to be content with the decision.
“I’m very happy with the decision,” Smith said. “I’m happy that they upheld the decisions, that they recognized that USG does things by the book.”
Tempe USG President Cassidy Possehl said the case was an important lesson to be extra careful with technology in the future.
“One of the things we’ve talked about is perhaps doing every vote by hand and eliminating technology altogether," Possehl said. "It’ll be unfortunate because this is the most efficient way that we found to do suit senate meetings, it’s very congruent to what federal government uses.”
Murray said she plans to take legal action against USG, now focusing on the content instead of the process.
Murray said there were no grounds for impeachment. She also said people can be impeached based on personal feelings because this power lies with the senate.
Murray also said USG senators, staff members and interns have wrongfully accused her of violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and that’s a serious damage to her reputation.
“I don’t think people understand that there’re consequences to what everyone does,” she said. “Obviously I’m facing the consequences in my actions, but they haven’t faced consequences of their actions yet."
Reach the reporter at kmaryaso@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @KseniaMaryasova
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