Below the top-of-the-ticket Arkansas Supreme Court race on this year's nonpartisan judicial ballots, two seats on the Arkansas Court of Appeals will be decided by voters in southern and western Arkansas.
The 12-member court -- which is placed below only the Supreme Court in the hierarchy of state courts -- had four seats up for election this year. Incumbent judges in two of those seats are running unopposed: Mike Murphy in District 2, Position 2, and Brandon Harrison in District 4, Position 1.
In one of the two contested races, a sitting appeals judge, Mark Klappenbach, faces a rematch against his 2016 opponent, James McMenis.
The other race, for an open seat, is a bitter campaign that has sparked a lawsuit and allegations of ethical misconduct between the two candidates, Emily White and Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Potter Barrett.
Early voting in Arkansas' nonpartisan judicial elections and party primaries began Tuesday. The election is March 3.
Judges elected to the court serve eight-year terms.
DISTRICT 4, POSITION 2
Electioneering disputes between White, a district judge, and Barrett began even before either woman formally filed for the open seat representing the court's District 4.
In August, while both campaigns were gathering signatures to appear on the ballot, Barrett's aunt distributed campaign materials and petitions supporting Barrett outside a Miller County courtroom where Barrett was working on jury selection for a murder trial. At least five of the signatures collected by Barrett's aunt matched the names of people called for jury duty in the case, including one woman who served on the jury that convicted the defendant, Marvin Stanton, and sentenced him to life in prison.
The incident prompted a consultant in White's campaign to file a complaint with the Arkansas Ethics Commission in November. (Stanton's defense attorney also called foul, and is appealing the conviction to the Arkansas Supreme Court.)
Around the same time that White's campaign filed the complaint, Barrett filed a lawsuit seeking to have White kicked off the ballot on the grounds that she did not live in the district.
Neither effort succeeded.
The complaint against Barrett was dismissed by the Ethics Commission last month without a finding of wrongdoing.
The same day that the complaint was dismissed, the state Supreme Court found that Barrett had failed to prove the allegations in her lawsuit that White had set up a phony residence in Hot Spring County in order to run for the seat. (The justices did agree with Barrett that White is ineligible to have the title "judge" in front of her name on the ballot, because she was appointed to her current post rather than elected.
Now, with less that two weeks to go before the election, both candidates hope their appeals referring to their experience will prove effective across the 15-county district that covers the Ouachita Mountains.
"That's not really affected my campaign at all," White said of Barrett's lawsuit. "I don't hear from folks as I'm traveling through District 4 that it's affected their perception of the issues or the differences between my opponent and myself."
In a television ad that recently began airing in the Fort Smith area, White emphasizes that she is "the only candidate in this race who is a judge."
Responding to that claim, Barrett argued that her experience as an elected prosecutor at the circuit court level is more transferable to the Court of Appeals than White's responsibilities as a district judge.
"It's a misdemeanor, traffic court," Barrett said. "Those are not the types of cases that the Court of Appeals hears."
In addition to their current jobs, both women have experience working in private practice and as appointed deputy prosecutors.
White took an assignment as a special justice on the Supreme Court for a case in 2018.
Barrett is a former clerk on the state Court of Appeals.
As far as campaign contributions, Barrett had $51,320 available to spend at the end of January, compared with $15,501 for White.
Both candidates raised most of their money from individuals, in addition to personal loans to their campaigns.
The District 4, Position 2, seat is now held by Judge Meredith Switzer, who was appointed last year to fill the vacancy left by the death of Judge David "Mac" Glover. As an appointee, Switzer is ineligible to run for the seat.
DISTRICT 5
Currently in his first term as a Court of Appeals judge, Klappenbach again faces a challenge from former military attorney McMenis, whom Klappenbach beat by more than 13 points to win his seat in 2016.
The Court of Appeals' District 5 covers 12 counties of south-central Arkansas.
In the 2016 race, McMenis finished first in an initial round of voting among three candidates. Then in the fall runoff, Klappenbach carried a majority of the counties in the district, while McMenis led in the area near his home in Union County, the district's largest.
"I think I've been doing a good job up there, and would like to stay," said Klappenbach, who is from Fordyce. "I haven't made any controversial decisions."
In an short interview this week, McMenis did not attempt to argue that Klappenbach had been a poor or ineffective judge and even called Klappenbach's legal decisions "solid."
Instead, the 71-year-old said that he was running because serving on the Court of Appeals would be the "pinnacle" of his legal career, from which he could retire. (He also suggested he could run for the Supreme Court.)
McMenis said his hopes to win the seat largely rely on a smaller turnout for a primary election, similar to the turnout in the first round of 2016 voting that he won.
Klappenbach is funding his campaign with a $10,000 personal loan, on top of $1,000 in fundraising. McMenis has not disclosed any of his campaign's fundraising or spending.
Speaking by phone this week, McMenis said he "didn't raise a heck of a lot of money," but that he was cutting down on campaign costs by reusing old signs from his 2016 run.
Metro on 02/19/2020