A Pulaski County circuit judge is considering suing Pulaski County over a personnel decision that she believes violates state law.
In a Nov. 12 letter to county officials, Judge Patricia James suggested that the county denying her an assistant bailiff and moving to terminate six officials – four probation officers and two intake officers – was unlawful.
James, who currently handles juvenile cases, said she is considering suing over the county's decision to deny her an assistant bailiff when she moves to the downtown courthouse next year. The six employees who stand to lose their jobs would have to sue on their own behalf, James indicated in an interview last week.
Pulaski County Attorney Adam Fogleman in a response letter said the state statutes referenced by James are unconstitutional from the county's point of view.
As part of a periodic reallocation of local judges in the 6th Judicial Circuit, which covers Pulaski and Perry Counties, James' 11th Division took over the drug and veteran's court in 2019 from the 9th Division, she explained.
Although she did not request an assistant bailiff at that time because her staff could serve that role in the juvenile justice complex, James next year will move to the downtown courthouse, she wrote in the letter.
At the downtown courthouse beginning Jan. 1, 2021, James will continue to hear criminal cases from drug and veteran's court, along with family court cases, but she will serve as a civil judge, not a juvenile judge.
"Going downtown, I'm only going to take my one bailiff," James told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday. "So I asked the county to give me an additional bailiff."
That request was denied by a county human-resources official, James said.
In James' letter, she cited a section of state law pertaining to the 6th Judicial Circuit that says if a judge hears criminal cases, an assistant bailiff may be appointed in addition to the primary bailiff.
James said she requested an assistant bailiff because "bailiffs have to secure the courtroom, and if you have people coming from holding cells that have come over from jail or come over from prison, you need two bailiffs – one to go get the prisoners and bring them up and the other to stay in the courtroom to make certain the judge and the other participants are safe."
The second part of the letter served as James' rebuttal to what she described as a county decision to terminate four probation and two intake officers assigned to the 11th Division after Quorum Court budget committee members chose to move them to the juvenile department.
According to Arkansas law, these employees report to circuit judges, not county officials, and county officials do not have the authority to hire, fire or otherwise manage them, James argued.
"The only reference is that the county is to pay all or part of the salaries depending on whether the employee is full or part time," James wrote in her letter.
With the changes in her docket beginning in 2021, those six employees were to move to the juvenile detention department under the supervision of officials who are not circuit judges, per the decision of the Quorum Court's committee.
But at the end of October, Pulaski County Human Resources Director Chastity Scifres informed them they would no longer have jobs after Dec. 31, according to James.
James said this ran afoul of state law and a county administrative improvement plan approved by the state Supreme Court that said on Dec. 31, 2020, these six employees would be transferred to Divisions 8 and 10.
"Again, the only people who can hire and fire judicial employees are judges," she told the Democrat-Gazette.
James emailed the letter to Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde, members of the Pulaski County Quorum Court, Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Legley, Fogleman and others.
She said she wrote the memo "thinking that at least there are some people on the Quorum Court that want to follow the law, that do not want to do unlawful things, but sometimes they're not aware and they're being told things by Ms. Scifres or by Judge Hyde that are incorrect."
"And I just don't want those people to be caught up in something that may or may not go to a lawsuit," James added.
Asked what she will do in the event that these decisions are not reversed, James said she is considering filing a lawsuit on her behalf with regard to the assistant bailiff job. She said the employees who are scheduled be terminated next month would have to file a lawsuit for their jobs.
"The memo is basically a precursor of a legal brief," James said.
Another circuit judge, Vann Smith of the 14th Division, wrote a letter to county officials in support of James on Nov. 12.
Like James, Smith argued that the county does not have the authority to remove probation or intake officers who serve at the pleasure of a circuit court judge hearing juvenile cases.
The six employees who are to be removed "have special skills that were set out in Judge James' letter," Smith wrote.
"It appears to be patently unfair to treat county employees in such a manner particularly when this Plan has been in effect for over a year with anticipation that the new juvenile judges elected would have an opportunity to fashion their own probation office when they take office January 1, 2021," Smith wrote.
When asked for comment on James' letter, Cozetta Jones, a spokeswoman for Hyde, provided a response from Fogleman, the county attorney, to the letters from James and Smith.
In his brief reply on Monday, Fogleman told the judges it is the county's position that the statutes referenced in James' letter are unconstitutional based on the Arkansas Constitution and two decisions of the state Supreme Court.
"I hope that we can amicably resolve the legal question, and soon," Fogleman wrote.
A spokeswoman for the Association of Arkansas Counties declined to comment on the dispute in Pulaski County.
"The Association of Arkansas Counties does not get involved in matters such as this," spokeswoman Christy Smith wrote in an email on Tuesday. "I would refer you back to Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde or County Attorney Adam [Fogleman] for more information about this situation."