Beebe taps Murphy to step in for Maggio

CONWAY -- Conway City Attorney Michael Murphy said Monday that he hopes to do his part to restore the public's confidence in the judicial system now that he's been appointed to replace ousted Judge Michael Maggio.

Gov. Mike Beebe announced Monday that he had chosen Murphy to preside over the 20th Judicial Circuit's Division 2, where Maggio had presided until the Arkansas Supreme Court stripped him of all cases in late March and then removed him from office last week.

Until Thursday, Maggio had continued to draw his $138,981.96 annual salary, even though he had not handled a single case since March 24. The high court's order removing Maggio from office immediately freed the governor's office to appoint a replacement to help deal with the backlog of cases in the circuit, which covers Faulkner, Van Buren and Searcy counties.

Murphy, 53, was elected in May to serve as the circuit's Division 1 judge and will take office in that position in January.

Amendment 29 to the Arkansas Constitution would have forbidden Murphy from taking an appointment to the same division in which he was elected to serve. But circuit judges can be elected to divisions other than those to which they were appointed.

The Conway City Council has called a special meeting for noon today to accept Murphy's resignation and to appoint a new city attorney.

Mayor Tab Townsell said he will recommend the appointment of Chuck Clawson, now the deputy city attorney. Clawson, 35, is unopposed in his bid to become city attorney in January.

Amendment 29 does not apply to city offices, Townsell and Murphy noted.

Clawson said he will need to hire a deputy city attorney as soon as he can.

Circuit Judge Charles "Ed" Clawson Jr., who had taken on the bulk of the 2nd Division cases after Maggio was taken off them, plans to attend the City Council meeting to swear in his son and Murphy, Chuck Clawson said Monday.

The city attorney's job pays $101,494 a year.

In an interview Monday, Murphy said, "I appreciate the governor's confidence in me and am looking forward to doing my duty and helping get the cases moving.

"We've got some great attorneys and judges in the state," Murphy added. "Obviously, this situation [involving Maggio] in the 2nd Division ... it's undermined the trust the public has in our judiciary to some degree. I just want to do my part to help restore that as best we can and let people get their cases heard."

During his own judicial campaign, he said, it became apparent to him, starting in March, that "the public was losing any kind of trust and confidence in the judiciary because it's extremely important that [this] branch of government be beyond reproach."

People would stop Murphy during his campaign, he said, "and that's what people would want to know about. ... The public paid attention. It concerned them. They want the judiciary" to be independent. "We have some great lawyers and judges in the state of Arkansas, but the bad news was what people were reading and hearing about.

Being short one presiding judge for so long has created a backlog of cases, Murphy said.

"It puts people on hold; it's stressful" and has created a burden on all of the circuit's judges, especially Judge Clawson.

"I want to help as much as I can to get us on the right track," Murphy said.

Murphy has been city attorney in Conway since 1991. At first, it was a part-time job, but as the city grew, so did the job and the position became full time.

"I am extremely happy for Mike to move on to this new step in his career," said Townsell, who graduated from high school with Murphy and became his roommate when they were young adults.

Townsell said he was "absolutely" confident that Chuck Clawson would do an excellent job as city attorney.

"The Clawson name is extremely well-respected in legal circles here in town," the mayor said. "I can only tell you [that from] working with Chuck in his role as assistant city attorney, he's going to be absolutely a cracker jack city attorney."

Maggio is under federal investigation over contributions made to his former appeals court campaign by political action committees financed by nursing-home owner Michael Morton of Fort Smith.

Morton's checks written to the committees were dated July 8, 2013, the day Maggio heard a plea to reduce a Faulkner County jury's judgment against one of Morton's nursing homes. Three days later, Maggio reduced the $5.2 million judgment to $1 million in the case, a negligence lawsuit resulting from the 2008 death of nursing home patient Martha Bull, 76.

In March, the Supreme Court relieved Maggio of all cases after he admitted to making a wide range of contentious online comments unveiled by the Blue Hog Report blog about women, sex, race, divorce, bestiality and a legally confidential adoption case involving actress Charlize Theron.

State Desk on 09/16/2014