FORT SMITH - The Arkansas Supreme Court hits the road next week to hold court at Fort Smith’s Northside High School.
The judicial road trip called Appeals on Wheels grew out of Amendment 80 that allows the justices to hold court in cities other than Little Rock, court communications counsel Stephanie Harris said Thursday.
Under the program, the court has traveled to different parts of the state twice a year since 2000 to hold court. Last year, the justices convened in Bentonville in April and in Conway in October.
While the sessions of the Arkansas Supreme Court in Little Rock are open to the public, “They like to give people outside Little Rock a chance to see how [the court] works,” she said.
Court is scheduled to convene Thursday at 9 a.m. in the high school auditorium with oral arguments lasting about an hour, Harris said. The justices then will go into a closed conference where they will discuss the case privately for about two hours before lunch. Some of the justices may visit with students after lunch, she said.
The justices will hear oral arguments in an appeal from Lonoke County Circuit Court of a woman, Sandra Nance of Austin, who was convicted of five counts of misdemeanor cruelty to animals in March 2013.
Nance’s brief to the court argues that the circuit court’s refusal to suppress evidence obtained in a search and seizure violated her Fourth and 14th Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution and Article II, Section 15 of the Arkansas Constitution.
She also challenges in the brief the constitutionality of Arkansas Code Annotated Section 5-62-106 that governs disposition of an animal after seizure by law enforcement and the circuit court’s terminating her ownership of five dogs seized from her property.
According to the brief, Humane Society officials, sheriff’s deputies and others responded to complaints in July 2012 that many of the dogs she kept on her property were suffering from the heat. After viewing the poor conditions at Nance’s home,the deputies seized 137 dogs.
Initially, the brief stated, she was charged with 13 counts of animal cruelty, including three felonies, but was convicted of five misdemeanor counts and was fined $500 and ordered to do 100 hours of community service. The judge also ordered that she lose custody of her animals and pay $6,425 to the Humane Society of Pulaski County for care and treatment of the animals.
She f iled a motion to suppress the seizure of the dogs, arguing she didn’t give consent for the officials to search the property, although she acquiesced to the officials entering her property. The presiding judge denied the motion, saying she consented to the search.
She argued in the brief that once she arrived at her home, the various officials were already there and had illegally entered her property where the dogs were kept. She claimed she had no ability to stop her dogs from being taken.
Any evidence gained from that illegal entry and search of her property was tainted and inadmissible in court, she argued.
Nance also filed a motion for the return of the dogs and for a declaration that Arkansas Code Annotated Section 5-62-106 is unconstitutional.
In the brief, Nance argued that the law is flawed because, among other things, it provides no hearing before the animal seizures and no opportunity for a person to challenge the seizures.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/04/2014