Four judicial contests get little attention
By Roy Ockert Jr.
With the roar of impeachment and a presidential election, it’s easy to forget that Arkansas has primary elections on March 3. Under the misbegotten theory that the state would have more clout in choosing a president, our Legislature moved the primaries up from May.
Unfortunately, that meant having candidates file before Christmas and campaign in the winter months. Since we elect judges, on a nonpartisan basis but at the same time as our partisan primaries, judicial elections are also pushed up.
That’s bad because judicial campaigns, by their nature, don’t get much attention. Yet in our system the judicial branch is as important as the executive and legislative branches; unlike leaders of the latter two, judges must have certified skills, namely in the form of a law degree.
Further, the court system maintains standards designed to ensure the independence, integrity and impartiality of judges and those who want to be judges.
For example, the Arkansas Canons of Judicial Conduct generally prohibit all judges and judicial candidates from, among other things: holding an office in a political organization, endorsing or opposing a candidate for any public office, personally soliciting funds for political purposes (including his or her own), identifying as a member of a political party, making any false or misleading statement, commenting on pending litigation or taking stands inconsistent with the impartial demands of judicial office.
In other words, since Arkansas elects its judges, those who seek judicial offices through the political process must not act like politicians.
That makes it harder for voters to decide on the better candidates. Generally, we don’t have to often since once elected, a judge is unlikely to be opposed for re-election.
However, it so happens that the 2nd Judicial District, which covers most of northern and eastern Arkansas and includes Craighead County, has five Circuit Court judgeships open this year. John Fogleman of Marion retired at the end of 2019 and was replaced by Keith Chrestman of Jonesboro. Retiring at the end of this year will be Ralph Wilson of Osceola, Brent Davis and Barbara Halsey, both of Jonesboro. Chrestman can’t seek a new term for the position to which he was appointed.
Filings left the district with four contested races, each with two candidates. Only the position now held by Judge Davis is not contested. Chris Thyer, former state legislator and U.S. attorney, will be unopposed.
To help our members get acquainted with the candidates, the Jonesboro Kiwanis Club put together two “mini-debates,” each including the candidates for two positions. While you can cover only so much ground in the 30 minutes available for a civic club program, we were happy to have some media coverage. For the candidates some is better than none.
In this limited space I can’t offer much information about the contested races. But since early voting begins Monday (Feb. 17), it may be helpful to get straight who’s running for which positions. Here are the four contests:
Division 5 (now held by Wilson) — Skip Mooney Jr. of Jonesboro and Tom Young of West Memphis. • Division 7 (Halsey) — Mary Lile Broadway of Paragould and R. Scott Troutt of Jonesboro. • Division 8 (Chrestman) — Kimberly Boling Bibb of Paragould and Matthew Coe of Marion. • Division 12 (new position) — Scott Ellington and Scott Willhite, both of Jonesboro. That doesn’t tell you anything about the candidates except who they’re running against, but there are some opportunities for voters to do their own research, if so inclined.
KLEK radio has interviewed all candidates live, and you can find the archived versions under the Media tab on its Web site (www.klekfm.org). The Kiwanis programs may also be found there.
The Arkansas Judicial Campaign Conduct and Education Committee, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization created by the Arkansas Bar Association, offers a Web site on which candidates can post a picture and biographical sketch. That’s the same committee that fostered the Rapid Response Team, a watchdog effort designed to deal with judicial election ethics problems and on which I served for a couple of years. The RRT has been suspended, but the Web site lives on.
Candidate participation is strictly voluntary, but it’s free. As of Thursday, information on four of the 2nd District candidates could be found on the site. The link is www.arkansasjudges.org.
Like most candidates for political office today, these would-be judges are using social media to try to reach voters. After all, it’s a big district. With six counties the geography is roughly the same size as the 2nd Congressional District of central Arkansas.
All can be found on Facebook, though you may need to look past their personal pages for a campaign page. All have campaign Web sites, and you can find them with a Google search of their names. The Web sites also have financial functions, allowing voters to make contributions. That’s another problem of our judicial election process; contributions mainly come from other lawyers and special interest groups.
In my own research of Circuit judge candidates, I look especially for trial experience. This is our primary trial court, and the bench is no place for an attorney who has spent little time in a courtroom.
Roy Ockert is a former editor of The Jonesboro Sun. He can be reached at royo@suddenlink.net.