A 57-year-old Little Rock man who helped murder his wife’s mother was in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Friday to fight efforts to force him to surrender about $5,000, money that he said was a gift from his mother.
But Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen rejected convicted murderer Michael MacKool’s claims the funds deposited into his inmate account were a gift that couldn’t be touched by authorities, awarding the money to the state under Arkansas Code Annotated 12-29-501, the State Prison Inmate Care and Custody Act.
The 30-year-old law allows Arkansas to seize prisoner assets to pay for inmate food, shelter and other necessities. According to testimony, the average daily cost to house an inmate is $60, based on the most recent survey; MacKool’s upkeep has cost $129,447.54 for 2,297 days of incarceration, which is an average of $56.36 per day.
Assistant Attorney General Colin Jorgenson told the judge the seizure was “routine” action involving a law already tested multiple times before the Arkansas Supreme Court, which has found it to be constitutional.
“Once [the money is] in his account, it’s his as a matter oflaw ... and the state is entitled to it,” Jorgenson said. “The Arkansas Supreme Court has denied every defense he’s put on.”
MacKool was convicted in November 2004 of first-degree murder and theft in the September 2003 slaying of Janie Ballard. She was stabbed more than 70 times by MacKool’s then-wife, Ballard’s daughter, Leslie Ballard, in a dispute over money.
Convicted at trial of capital murder and currently serving a life sentence, Ballard, 34, divorced MacKool after her May 2004 trial. MacKool has denied any role in the killing. Prosecutors said the couple wanted Ballard’s 58-year-old mother dead in the hopes of gaining an inheritance from the death of Ballard’s father, Lester Ballard. He died of illness but not before substantially reducing his daughter’s share of his estate.
MacKool argued Friday that the Arkansas Department of Correction unfairly entices inmates’ families and supporters to deposit money in the account on prisoners’ behalf but doesn’t warn them the funds could be subjected to seizure, as his were.
“The state took everything I have,” said MacKool, who was defending himself, saying he couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer. “I have nothing left.”
Appearing in the samecourtroom where he was convicted, MacKool told the judge he accepted that the law allows authorities to seize inmate money, but said that the only money the prison agency would be entitled to are funds the inmate either owned at sentencing or inherited while in prison. The $5,016.61 at issue is not an inheritance, he said, but a gift.
“My mother is still alive,” he told the judge.
But in rejecting MacKool’s arguments, the judge said the prisoner didn’t understand legal references to “estate” in the code. MacKool was arguing about estates as defined in probate law, but not as described in the custody act, which establishes a prisoner’s estate as any properties, including land, that can include income or payments to the inmate from Social Security, previously earned salary or wages, bonuses, annuities, pensions, retirement benefits or “anysource whatsoever.”
In 2006, the attorney general’s office, invoking the inmate care act, went after the more than $39,000 that Leslie Ballard inherited from her late father. Ballard, who did hire an attorney, contested the lawsuit, arguing that the money, derived from an individual retirement account, was exempt from the law, and the case ended in an undisclosed settlement.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 20 on 02/27/2011