O’Hern to face Terry in Sebastian County District Court, Division 1 race

Voters will have a choice in the March 5, 2024, election for Sebastian County District Court, Division 1 race. Former Judge Jim O’Hern has entered the race and will face Sebastian County District Court Judge Sam Terry who announced his bid in early April.

According to the Sebastian County Courts website, the district court actions include traffic violations, misdemeanor criminal cases, preliminary felony cases, civil cases, small claims cases and violations of a city ordinance.

Terry was appointed July 2022 by then Gov. Asa Hutchinson to fill the vacated term of Sebastian County District Judge Claire Borengasser who retired June 1. Terry’s appointed term ends Dec. 31, 2024. He is not allowed to seek election to an appointed post.

O’Hern was elected to the post in 2017 and defeated in March 2020 by Judge Amy Grimes, who now holds the office.

“During my prior service as Judge, I was very passionate about the position entrusted to me by the citizens of Fort Smith. I endeavored to treat each litigant, attorney, member of law enforcement, and city and county official with the utmost dignity and respect,” O’Hern said in a statement. “If re-elected in the upcoming primary, I will use the same pragmatic, common-sense approach to the issues that are faced daily in the Fort Smith District Court system.”

O’Hern received his law degree from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Prior to being elected to the bench, he had a private law practice for 34 years in Fort Smith. He was recognized five times as Pro Bono Attorney of the Year for donating his time and legal expertise to the poor and elderly and was twice named the statewide Volunteer Attorney of the Year for the Elderly by the Arkansas Bar Association.

O’Hern is a former adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, and is president of the Board of Directors for Arc for the River Valley.

He also is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Arkansas Legal Services, the Sebastian County Law Library, and is president of the Board of Directors for Village Harbor Property Owners Association. O’Hern is an attorney specialist for the Office of Chief Counsel for the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

O’Hern has been sanctioned by the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission for a December 2016 incident in which he – as a judge-elect – was in a Little Rock hotel room with a woman in possession of methamphetamine. O’Hern and the woman were detained by police. O’Hern was released and the woman was eventually given three years of supervised probation and fined $500 and court costs.

“A judge should avoid being tethered to situations and people that can result in publicly embarrassing situations such as the one you were in on December 2, 2016,” noted a section of the sanction letter to which O’Hern agreed to accept. “You agree that an admonishment is the appropriate sanction for your actions in JDDC Case #16-375. Your willingness to accept that your actions were in violation of the Code and your commitment to be more aware of these issues in the future, have led the JDDC to refrain from recommending a more serious sanction, public charges, or a public disciplinary hearing in these cases.”