Arkansas Supreme Court justices have referred fellow Justice Courtney Rae Hudson to the Arkansas Judicial Discipline & Disability Commission for investigation while also dismissing a lawsuit she filed to stop the release of certain documents to Arkansas Business.
The court issued its unsigned order on Tuesday, with Hudson and Justice Karen Baker dissenting. In addition to dismissing Hudson’s civil lawsuit, the order scolded Pulaski County Circuit Judge Patricia James for granting Hudson a temporary injunction preventing the release of the documents despite evidence that five of the seven members of the Supreme Court had already voted to release some of the materials.
From the order: “Here, an inferior court has purported to indirectly stay an administrative action of the supreme court by issuing an injunction against employees and entities under the control of this court. The pleadings and exhibits contain information on their face that should have put the circuit court on notice that this matter involved an internal administrative issue over which the circuit court has no jurisdiction. To allow a circuit court to stay enforcement of the supreme court’s decision would usurp the supreme court’s authority granted by the Arkansas Constitution.”
The majority also referred Hudson’s attorney, Justin Zachary of Denton Zachary & Norwood in Little Rock, for investigation by the Office of Professional Conduct. Exactly what actions led the court to refer Hudson and Zachary for disciplinary investigations is not spelled out in the four-page order, but it does note that “two confidential, unredacted, unsealed emails” from Chief Justice Dan Kemp to the six associate justices were filed as exhibits in Hudson’s complaint.
The order said that written dissents from Baker and Hudson were to follow but they had not been filed early Tuesday afternoon.
The case that Hudson filed on Sept. 6 concerned a Freedom of Information Act request that Mark Friedman, a senior editor at Arkansas Business, submitted on Aug. 23. He sought the release of communications from 2023 between Lisa Ballard, who was then the executive director of the Office of Professional Conduct, and several people, including Hudson. The OPC handles attorney discipline matters.
After Kemp and four associate justices held an internal vote to release communications from Ballard to Hudson — but not from Hudson to Ballard, as those are exempt from release in the Freedom of Information Act — Hudson sued the Administrative Office of the Courts, the OPC and their current directors. Hudson unilaterally obtained an injunction on the release of the documents from Circuit Judge James, who extended the temporary injunction after a hearing last week.
Neither Arkansas Business nor Friedman were defendants in the case, but the newspaper’s attorney, John Tull of Little Rock, filed a motion to intervene in the case. James had not ruled on that motion by the time the Supreme Court dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.
“Arkansas Business intended to intervene to protect its FOIA request and planned to immediately appeal the injunction to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which had jurisdiction,” Tull said Tuesday. “I anticipate documents will be provided, and I’m gratified by the actions of the court.”
Tull noted that the case was Hudson’s fourth attempt to enjoin the press. The earlier cases attempted to stop “dark money” advertising in opposition to her candidacy for the court.
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