In an April 15 entry in the case docket, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Ms. Powell’s petition for rehearing, effectively leaving in place sanctions against her and six other lawyers who were part of the Michigan lawsuit.
The failed suit, brought as part of a string of “Kraken” lawsuits that Ms. Powell championed, sought emergency relief in the form of eliminating all mail-in ballots from being counted in the 2020 election, or disqualifying Michigan’s electoral college votes from being counted in the final tally.
It also called for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to transmit certified election results that declared “President Donald Trump is the winner of the election.”
In August 2021, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker ordered Ms. Powell and the other lawyers to pay a $175,000 penalty in a 110-page order that called their Michigan election challenge lawsuit “frivolous” and a “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.” Ms. Powell has argued in court filings that her conduct was reasonable and that she had vetted her election fraud claims before filing the lawsuit.
Her attorney, Lawrence Joseph, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the Supreme Court’s April 15 decision not to rehear Ms. Powell’s appeal of her penalty.
‘Chilling Effect’ on Voter Fraud Litigation
In 2021, Judge Parker, a nominee of President Barack Obama, ruled that Ms. Powell waited too long to bring the lawsuit and said the voter fraud claims on which it was based were “nothing but speculation and conjecture.”
Besides imposing a monetary penalty, the judge ordered that Ms. Powell and the others be referred to the bar associations in their respective states for disciplinary proceedings.
In June 2023, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the monetary and disciplinary sanctions against Ms. Powell and the other attorneys, but it reduced the monetary sanctions to roughly $150,000.
Ms. Powell and the others then filed a petition requesting that the full appeals court rehear the case. They argued in their request for a rehearing en banc that the smaller panel’s order “creates extraordinary adverse implications for the practice of law.” Further, they claimed that it “creates an unprecedented and impermissible chilling effect on zealous advocacy and the willingness of any counsel to accept controversial cases.”
Michigan had ballot fraud.