A lawyer running for circuit judge could face scrutiny from prosecuting attorneys in Pulaski and Craighead counties after perplexing Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox with his answers in a deposition.
Judge Fox referred attorney Luther Sutter to the prosecuting attorneys apparently to investigate possible perjury and election law violations. Fox said in the Dec. 2 order that he was “not in any manner ruling or making any legal conclusions concerning the potential criminality” of Sutter’s actions or statements.
But Sutter, who is running for a circuit judge position in the 2nd Judicial Circuit, which includes Jonesboro, told Arkansas Business via email last week that Fox’s order violates his due process rights. “I intend to hold [Fox] accountable for the efforts he undertook to investigate me without appropriate notice to me,” Sutter wrote.
Will Jones, the prosecuting attorney for Pulaski County, said last Monday that he had not seen Fox’s order, and Sonia Hagood, the prosecuting attorney for Craighead County, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.
Fox began investigating after he reviewed Sutter’s June 2024 deposition taken for a lawsuit before Fox’s court. Sutter was a plaintiff, along with his wife, in a case involving a 2022 motor vehicle crash in Little Rock. Fox said he was aware of the deposition only because the defense attorney “felt physically threatened or intimidated by how angry plaintiff Sutter was during the taking of the deposition.” (In a Dec. 8 email to Sutter, the defense attorney, Michael M. Harrison of Friday Eldredge & Clark’s Little Rock office, said that she never claimed she felt threatened during the deposition.)
After reviewing the deposition transcript, Fox said he couldn’t determine the truth “about any possible overt, physical movements or physical actions of plaintiff Sutter.”
But something else in the deposition caught the judge’s attention. On June 13, 2024, Sutter was asked if he lived in Roland, at the address his wife, Pamela Pfeifer, had given to the defendant’s attorney in the case, according to Fox’s order.
Sutter said it wasn’t his address.
He testified that his permanent residence was in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Sutter said that the Alabama location had been his address for “a couple of years.”
Fox checked public records and found that Sutter was registered to vote in Pulaski County in 2024, listing a Roland address as his residence. And Sutter voted in Pulaski County in October 2024, according to Fox’s order.
“Sutter specifically testified that the address in Roland was not his ‘permanent residence,’” Fox wrote. “By his own testimony on June 13, 2024, plaintiff Sutter was a citizen of the State of Alabama as that is where his permanent residence was located.”
Sutter had been registered to vote in Pulaski County since 2014, according to county voting records, but on Nov. 6 of this year, he registered to vote in Craighead County and listed an address in Jonesboro.
Days after registering to vote in Craighead County, Sutter filed paperwork to run for circuit court judge there. He will face Brian Miles and Circuit Judge Charles “Skip” Mooney Jr. in the nonpartisan judicial elections on March 3.
In his order, Fox said that candidates for state offices must fill out a form requiring them to list their “permanent physical address.” Sutter listed an address in Jonesboro as his residence, according to the Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office.
Statutes Cited
In his order, Fox listed several state statutes concerning elections, including one stating that circuit court judges must live within the area of the circuit’s jurisdiction at the time of their election and during their service.
Fox also cited another section of election laws that says any person may vote in an election if that person meets certain requirements, such as being a resident of Arkansas. Voting as a nonresident is a felony punishable by up to six years in prison or a $10,000 fine or both.
Fox also listed a section from the Arkansas Code concerning perjury. He noted that a person commits perjury if during an official proceeding he makes a “false material statement” under oath. Perjury is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
“These factual issues which are of public record, but which are not at the present time part of the record of this matter, may or may not constitute criminal offenses pursuant to one or more of the above-cited statutes,” Fox wrote.
Fox also said that he is recusing himself from the civil case over the vehicle wreck in fairness to Sutter, his wife and the defendant, Brenda Knoernschild.
Harrison declined to comment on the case.
In the email to Arkansas Business, Sutter accused Harrison of having had communication with Fox without Sutter being present “that resulted in this abuse of process.”
Sutter provided Arkansas Business with Dec. 8 emails between him and Harrison. Sutter demanded in the emails that she formally retract the statements Fox attributed to her in his order.
Harrison told Sutter that she only spoke to someone in Fox’s office, giving statements that Sutter acted “very angry” and was attempting to intimidate her, “which were true,” Harrison said in the email to Sutter.
Sutter said that Fox interpreted Harrison’s statements to mean that she felt physically threatened. “This is an accusation that I engaged in criminal conduct,” Sutter wrote. “I took no such action. I demand you retract your statement.”
Harrison responded that since she didn’t claim that she felt threatened, there wasn’t a statement that needed to be retracted.
“That’s not what Judge Fox referred to the Prosecuting Attorneys however, but rather what he believed to be several instances of election fraud on your part,” Harrison wrote.
Sign up for Daily E-news
