Arkansas judge barred from hearing death penalty cases sees 'unseemly timing'

An attorney for Pulaski County Judge Wendell Griffen said the Arkansas Supreme Court acted with "unseemly timing" by issuing a ruling last week that the court's attorneys cited just days later in support of their request to dismiss Griffen's federal lawsuit against the justices.

Michael Laux is representing Griffen in the judge's ongoing federal lawsuit, which accuses the Supreme Court of violating Griffen's rights when it stripped the judge of all death penalty-related cases last spring after Griffen appeared at the center of an anti-death penalty protest in front of the Governor's Mansion.

In an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday morning, Laux said he was concerned with the timing of a brief filed by the Supreme Court's lawyers, who are asking a federal judge to dismiss that lawsuit.

According to Laux, on Jan. 16, attorneys for the justices asked for permission to reply to Laux's final brief in the case, in which Laux had argued that the state waived its sovereign immunity from lawsuits through provisions in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Griffen has said his demonstration was because of his religious briefs).

Laux said he agreed to allow the state to respond "as a courtesy" Jan. 17. Then on Jan. 18, in an unrelated case, a split majority of the high court issued a decision declaring legislative waivers of sovereign immunity unconstitutional.

That ruling, which overturned 20 years of precedent, was cited in a single sentence at the end of the court's 30-page reply to Laux's brief, which attorneys for the justices filed in federal court Tuesday.

"It only leads one to believe it was part of a grand scheme," Laux said.

Neither attorneys for the justices nor Chief Justice Dan Kemp, who wrote the court's majority decision last week, responded to requests for comment Wednesday.

Laux said he is deliberating with other lawyers on his team whether to file an additional reply to the court's most recent brief. Otherwise, he said the case is fully briefed before U.S. District Court Judge James Moody Jr.

Metro on 01/25/2018