Arkansas Supreme Court Rules On Voter ID, Judicial Qualifications

The Arkansas Supreme Court capped a busy day with several rulings providing clarity to controversial political laws.

First, the state’s high court struck down a lower court ruling that the Arkansas voter ID law was unconstitutional. The controversial measure that requires voters to provide photo IDs in many instances was overturned as unconstitutional by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox two weeks ago.

In the case considered, Fox had issued his ruling related to the handling of absentee ballots. But Fox went beyond that central point in the case by declaring the full law as unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court said that Fox did not have the authority to consider the constitutionality of the voter ID law in his decision. However, Fox has also ruled the law unconstitutional in another case that came before him that did seek a determination on the law’s legal merits. An appeal of that case is still pending before the court.

JUDICIAL QUALIFICATIONS
In a separate case hoping to provide clarification on the qualifications of judicial candidates, Kelly v. Martin, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that candidates whose licenses were briefly suspended for late payments of annual dues are eligible for election. The case actually centered on Judge Tim Fox’s eligibility after he was late last year in paying his annual legal license dues. The plaintiffs argued that Fox — and potentially other delinquent payers — had not met a threshold of being a “licensed attorney” for six years prior to being elected.

In a divided court opinion, the majority said that the lower court ruling was invalid. The majority of justices relied on the interpretation of phrases such as “suspension,” “disbarment,” and “reinstatement” to render its finding.

“Accordingly, we conclude that, under amendment 80, even though Judge Fox failed to pay his annual license fee for forty-five days in 2013, he nevertheless remained a licensed attorney during the period of delinquency because his license was not terminated and his name was not removed from the list of licensed attorneys,” Justice Jospehine Hart wrote for the majority.

Another case, Chandler v. Martin, also addressed a similar situation involving Faulkner County Circuit Judge H.G. Foster, who was declared eligible for the ballot.

MORE CONTROVERSY
The court’s actions on Wednesday also seemed to contradict a recent ruling in a high-profile Risperdal case that brought a public rebuke from Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.

McDaniel had complained that the Supreme Court turned legal precedent on its head after it determined that an original law and its interpretation by the Arkansas Code Revision Commission were the basis of its decision in the $1.2 billion judgment it overturned.

McDaniel said that the ruling suggested that the current legal code was not reliable and that lawyers would have to research original intent in future cases.

In a footnote in the Chandler case, Justice Hart wrote, “The dissent even admits that the circuit court did not consider this issue, and [i]t is well-settled that this court will not address an argument raised for the first time on appeal, even a constitutional argument.”

McDaniel had complained that the high court’s ruling in the Risperdal case considered a point not broached in previous legal action. It led him to criticize the state’s top justices for being “results-oriented.”

“The Arkansas Supreme Court has the reputation of being a results-oriented court. They get whatever result they want when they craft the law to match what they want done,” McDaniel said in an April 24 Talk Business & Politics interview. “In this case, they came up with something that no one even argued.”

The Supreme Court seemed to note the public brouhaha. In his dissenting opinion in the Kelly case, Justice Donald Corbin alluded to McDaniel’s comments.

“Recently, this court was publicly accused of being results oriented. Never has that been more evident than with today’s decisions,” wrote Corbin. “This court has long held that it will not engage in statutory interpretations that defy common sense and produce absurd results. Apparently, that is no longer the case. For these reasons, I dissent.”

Justice Hart responded to Corbin’s jab in a footnote in the Kelly case, “The dissent remarks, ‘Recently, this court was publicly accused of being results oriented. Never has that been more evident than with today’s decision.’ Although every opinion that this court promulgates achieves a ‘result,’ it is disappointing that a justice of this court would resort to this rhetoric.”