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First Amendment

Lawyer arrested at state bar meeting for carrying petitions reaches settlement

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 22, 2025, 2:58 pm CST

An Arkansas lawyer who was arrested for carrying ballot petitions at a state bar meeting in June 2024 has reached an out-of-court settlement that calls for payment of $200,000 to her lawyers.

Lawyer Jennifer Standerfer of Bentonville, Arkansas, settled with the Arkansas Bar Association; the city of Hot Springs, Arkansas; its police department and a city commission that owns the convention center where Standerfer was arrested for solicitation, the Arkansas Times reports. The settlement followed a mediation.

A joint statement by the parties said they “regret the fact of Ms. Standerfer’s arrest,” and they acknowledge that the lawyer had a constitutional right to carry the petitions.

Standerfer had argued that the First Amendment protected her. She had carried the petitions into the Hot Springs Convention Center, at first in a small wagon with a sign and on a second day by clipboards. She didn’t seek signatures but made the petitions available to anyone who wanted to sign them, she told KARK.com and the Arkansas Advocate after the meeting.

One proposed ballot measure would broaden the reach of the state’s Freedom of Information Act and stiffen penalties for violations, according to the Arkansas Advocate. The other would amend the Arkansas Constitution to create a government obligation to share information.

Standerfer was a committee member of the group sponsoring the petition drive, Arkansas Citizens for Transparency. After Standerfer’s arrest, the group obtained materials about the arrest through the state’s Freedom of Information Act, KARK.com reported.

Video obtained by the group showed officers telling Standerfer that she was being asked to leave. When she refused, officers handcuffed the lawyer and removed her from the event. She was not formally charged.

A state bar representative had texted the convention center asking staff members to ask Standerfer to leave because of the petitions, documents indicated. The bar had said after Standerfer’s arrest, no one authorized to speak for the association had sought Standerfer’s removal.

Standerfer had explained why she backed greater transparency in an April 2024 opinion column for theNorthwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“The FOIA is how we know what our government is doing,” she wrote. “It is how we hold politicians accountable, and we should do a whole lot more than question any politician who says that we should sacrifice our rights under the FOIA in the name of ‘efficiency.’”

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An Arkansas football coach and his wife who were busted in an online child sex abuse sting operation after trying to meet with an extremely young child for sex have learned how they will spend the next decade and beyond: behind bars.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Benjamin Coney, 30, and Emily “Grace” Brinley, 26, were accused of one count each of internet stalking of a minor and conspiracy to commit rape, according to court documents obtained by Law&Crime. Coney had once worked as a minor league football coach in Little Rock — until the “To Catch a Predator”-like sting operation.

Federal authorities have announced that they have been sentenced to a combined 378 months in prison without the possibility of parole. Coney was sentenced to more than 17 years — 210 months — behind bars, followed by 25 years of supervision, and Brinley was sentenced to 14 years in prison, followed by 15 years of supervision. They were sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks, a Barack Obama appointee.

A stepfather in Arkansas allegedly murdered his wife’s 2-year-old son by repeatedly throwing him into a pool and pushing him underwater while his mom gave the OK, ultimately drowning the toddler in what the couple said was attempt to teach the boy how to swim, prosecutors say.

Dakota Shawn Hays, 29, and Annastacia Atkins, 24, of Van Buren, were arrested and charged this week with first-degree murder and other offenses in connection to the June 2024 death of Atkins’ son and for previous allegations of abuse that were uncovered during the death investigation, according to the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office and Crawford County Prosecuting Attorney. The couple was named in an arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime on Thursday that outlines how Atkins allegedly let Hays abuse her 2-year-old.

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Judiciary

State chief justice with ‘millions of reasons’ to fire court employees can’t do so unilaterally, top Arkansas court says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 7, 2025, 3:37 pm CST

The Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in Friday, when the state’s new chief justice tried to fire nearly a dozen employees, including the director of the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts.

In a Jan. 3 administrative order, the state supreme court said Chief Justice Karen Baker can’t fire the director of the administrative office without the approval of a court majority. And the chief justice can’t fire other court employees, with the exception of her law clerks and administrative assistant, absent an order from the director of the administrative office, the state supreme court said.

The Legal Profession Blog, Law360, the Arkansas Advocate (via How Appealing), 4029TV.com and KARK.com have coverage.

The Arkansas Supreme Court rescinded Baker’s termination orders, calling the situation “unnecessary and unfortunate.”

The events giving rise to the order began Jan. 2, when Baker called to her office the chief of supreme court police and the director of the administrative office. During the meeting, Baker “confronted the director and police chief about their responses to Freedom of Information Act requests involving her,” the state supreme court said, without offering specifics.

Baker indicated that she had prepared letters to fire both officials but was unsure whether she would do so, the Arkansas Supreme Court said. The next day, Baker told the police chief that he was fired and tried to fire at least 10 administrative office employees, including the office director.

A fellow justice who learned of the attempt asked to meet with Baker about her decisions, but the chief justice refused. When asked why the employees were being fired, Baker said she had “millions of reasons,” the state supreme court said.

Some of the employees have pending human resources complaints against the chief justice “for recent incidents,” the Arkansas Supreme Court said. The state supreme court’s decision did not delve into the FOIA request that appeared to prompt the attempted firings.

But a December report by Talk Business & Politics said Baker had contacted the police chief after a reporter with Arkansas Business asked about surveillance footage purporting to show her entering the administrative offices.

“There better not be footage going around,” Baker reportedly said in a voicemail to the police chief. Baker later told Talk Business & Politics that she never entered locked offices, and she did not know whether the reporter had made a FOIA request for the footage.

A separate FOIA controversy concerned a fellow justice, Justice Courtney Rae Hudson.

Baker was the only dissenter when the state supreme court tossed a lawsuit by Hudson seeking to block release of emails to Arkansas Business that had been sent to her by the then-director of the state’s attorney ethics body, the Arkansas Office of Professional Conduct.

The emails, it turned out, “mostly concern operational matters at OPC, including an employee’s request for leave, a proposal for sizable raises for OPC staff, and a disagreement over whether the $195.50 purchase of an air fryer at Sam’s Club counted as a legitimate office expense,” according to an October story by the Arkansas Advocate.

The email clash in September prompted the state supreme court majority to refer Hudson and her lawyer to ethics regulators for investigation for “flagrant breaches of confidentiality” in the suit. Baker, in turn, referred the five-justice majority in the email case for disciplinary investigation.

Hudson did not participate in the email decision or in the Jan. 3 decision curbing the chief justice’s authority to fire employees.

Baker told KARK.com that the previous three chief justices had the power to hire and fire.

“As the first woman elected to be the chief justice for the state of Arkansas in the state’s history, I will accept no less authority than my predecessors have,” Baker told the broadcast station.

The medical license of an Arkansas doctor with a family medicine practice has been suspended following allegations that he harassed and engaged in sexual activity with members of his staff — who were also his patients — and was walking about his medical clinic completely nude.

The Arkansas State Medical Board on Wednesday issued an emergency order of suspension pending a hearing regarding alleged violations of the Medical Practices Act against Dr. David Diffine, documents obtained by Law&Crime show.

According to the order, the board received information indicating that Diffine’s practice required immediate action regarding the “public health, safety, and welfare.”

A man has pleaded guilty to helping kidnapping and murder an Arkansas resident who was accused of raping a young girl.

According to court documents filed on Friday, Reginald Larue Baker, 43, was sentenced to 60 years in prison for a count each of accomplice to murder in the first degree, accomplice to kidnapping, and accomplice to aggravated residential burglary. He received 861 days time served.

Authorities have said that he and co-defendant Daniel Paul Blanks, 45, were at a birthday party with Richard Phillips, 39, as well as a teenage girl on Oct. 27, 2021. The girl told Baker and Blanks that Phillips raped her when she was 6 years old, according to investigators.

Authorities in Jefferson County, Arkansas, announced on Thursday that they caught one of the inmates who fled a local jail.

Noah David Roush, 22, charged in a burglary and suspected in an unrelated homicide, is back at the Dub Brassell Adult Detention Center. That leaves Jatonia Bryant Jr. 23, in the wind while facing a separate murder case.

According to deputies, authorities got a call Thursday at approximately 4 p.m. The caller told law enforcement about seeing a person fitting Roush’s description inside an abandoned home in the area of 19th Avenue and Plum Street in the city of Pine Bluff.

Captain Yohance Brunson with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office arrived and saw Roush, who tried to flee on foot, the sheriff’s office said. Brunson, however, managed to catch him with the help of Captain Brad Vilches and Officer Aaron Torres with the Southeast Arkansas College (SEARK) Department of Public Safety.