LAS VEGAS (AP) — The yearslong case against six Nevada Republicans who were accused of submitting a bogus certificate that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election has been dismissed, a judge ruled Thursday.
The dismissal marks the latest setback in swing states’ efforts to prosecute fake electors who tried to keep Trump in the White House after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
Three other fake elector cases in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia have been dismissed. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes recently dismissed her office’s criminal case but vowed to bring it back to a grand jury in hopes of securing another indictment. The dismissal was a legal maneuver aimed at getting around a deadline for starting new grand jury proceedings after Mayes lost an appeal earlier in June.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is also running for governor as a Democrat, brought charges relating to forgery and “offering a false instrument for filing or record” against the six Nevada Republicans, who pleaded not guilty.
His office plans to appeal the ruling.
The defendants included Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, the former chair of the Clark County Republican Party. Their attorneys declined to comment Thursday.
After the 2020 election, the six Republican electors gathered outside of the Nevada Legislature to sign a certificate giving the state’s six electoral votes to Trump, despite Biden winning the state by more than 30,000 votes. The ceremony was broadcast online, and the video footage was used as evidence in the case.
The case has revolved around the defendants’ intent behind submitting the certificate.
Prosecutors argue the defendants intended for their documents to be mistaken for actual electoral votes that then-Vice President Mike Pence would count on Jan. 6, 2021.
The defendants say submitting the certificate was an act of “political theater” designed to publicize their concerns about the election. They were preserving their rights to challenge the official election results and had no intent to deceive a government agency into accepting the GOP certificate as real, their attorneys argued.
Nevada Judge Mary Kay Holthus agreed.
She found there was a lack of evidence that showed the electors intended to deceive government officials, and she determined that the state failed to disclose exculpatory evidence to the grand jury.
“The fact that Defendants openly announced both their actions and their asserted purpose, rather than concealing their conduct or attempting to secretly induce governmental reliance, weighs against a reasonable inference that they acted with fraudulent intent,” Holthus wrote in her ruling.
Jurisdiction had also been an issue, but the case eventually landed in Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas and leans Democratic.
Courts have dismissed similar cases in Michigan and Georgia, and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Those cases ended after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. A fake electors case is ongoing in Wisconsin.
FILE - Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald walks on stage before speaking ahead of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at a campaign event, Jan. 27, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010.
The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985 and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.
Having three executions in one day is a coincidence in scheduling, but it also reflected a trend of increased executions in the U.S. Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest number since 2009. With Thursday's executions, 22 inmates have been put to death this year with nearly a dozen more scheduled.
The last time three executions were carried out on the same day was on Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama had problems with the IV line.
Florida executed two men on the same day in July and has put 31 prisoners to death since the start of 2025.
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, died by lethal injection at the state’s penitentiary in rural McAlester, the third person put to death this year in Oklahoma.
Cuesta-Rodriguez turned his head to look at his two relatives who attended and mouthed “I love you” but said he had no last words. His breathing was labored for several minutes before he was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. CDT.
Convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend at their Oklahoma City home in 2003, Cuesta-Rodriguez had said he regretted killing Olimpia Fisher and told a board he didn't want clemency. His attorneys said he had a difficult childhood in Cuba and suffered from brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Fisher, 43, planned to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye and then he waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.
Fisher’s daughters, Cinthya Allen and Katya Wallis, said in a statement that they hoped the execution brings awareness to preventing domestic violence and they honor their mother by "raising our families to reflect the love and faith in God that she taught us.”
Anthony Darrell Hines received an injection in Tennessee for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins. He was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT.
Hines stabbed Jenkins to death while the 54-year-old was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs.
Hines said “not right now, thank you” when asked if he had final words, then said, “Tell my son hello" before he died. Hines' son witnessed the execution. He reconnected with his father four days earlier after not seeing him since he was 3 years old.
About four minutes after the curtain to the death chamber opened, Hines asked his spiritual adviser: “How long do I have?” Not long afterward, witnesses heard groans and heavy breathing as the spiritual adviser put her hands on his shoulders and prayed over him.
Afterward, Jenkins’ son detailed how his mother had only a plastic spray bottle to defend herself against the knife attack.
“I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through,” Dennis Jenkins said.
Hines' execution comes just three months after the attempted lethal injection of another man was stopped after medical staff couldn’t establish a backup IV line for more than an hour.
Hines, 66, appealed unsuccessfully to the governor and the courts, saying that the doctor who oversaw the May execution was unqualified and likely to botch his execution as well.
Alabama executed Jeremy Williams for the 2021 rape and murder of the young Georgia girl. He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT following the injection.
“I want to thank God for forgiving me for my sins so I can meet him in peace,” Williams said in his final words. He rocked his head back and forth and smiled and appeared to sing or speak before slowing become still on the gurney.
A member of Williams' family, who was seated near the media, cried quietly throughout the execution.
Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, had declined to appeal and requested that his death sentence be carried out. In letters to the Alabama attorney general’s office, Williams sought an immediate execution date so his victim's family "may have some type of closure and satisfaction which they deserve.”
Williams, 42, raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, prosecutors said, adding he filmed his attack.
“To see on video what he did to this baby, what a grown man could do to a child, it’s shocking, it’s horrible, it’s disgusting,” Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said. “It’s just a level of evil.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, in a statement after the execution, described the crime as “evil.”
“The unspeakable nature of this crime is exactly why we have the death penalty statute in the state of Alabama,” she said.
The girl’s mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking.
Williams also was a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska but charges were not filed until 2022.
Corey Holland, Kamarie’s father, said she was an exuberant child who loved princesses and made people laugh.
“She loved playing dress-up, all her little Halloween costumes and her princess stuff I got her. She liked anything girly,” Corey Holland said.
It was Alabama’s first execution of the year. A nitrogen gas execution was put on hold in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.
Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins and Hallie Golden contributed.
Katherine Dix, left, attorney for Anthony Darrell Hines, joined by his spiritual advisor Diana Gallaher, speaks after the execution of Hines at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada speaks at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after the execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Pastor Ingrid McIntyre, left, and Pastor Wesley King talk outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the planned execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A man enters the area reserved for protesters opposed to the death penalty outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the planned execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Dennis Jenkins, left, son of murder victim Catherine Jean Jenkins, speaks outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution following the execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
This Aug. 18, 2025, photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, who was sentenced to death for the 2003 fatal shooting of his girlfriend. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)
This undated photo, courtesy of the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), shows death row inmate Anthony Darrell Hines at an unknown location in Tennessee. (TDOC Communications via AP)
FILE - This Oct. 9, 2014, file photo shows the gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
