Justices get late-dues appeals

Losers in judicial-ballot-eligibility cases seek quick ruling

The question of whether paying law-licensing dues late can disqualify a judicial candidate from election now goes to the Arkansas Supreme Court in the form of appeals from four recently concluded candidacy-challenging lawsuits.

Those appealing, all of whom were losers in the suits, are asking the high court to resolve the cases quickly because the election is May 20 and early voting begins in two weeks on May 5. The lawsuits were intended to remove candidates from the ballot, but only one was successful.

The appeals offer the high court two differing legal analyses that reached the same conclusion: that administrative suspensions imposed on attorneys for paying dues late are not sufficient to disqualify them from running to become judges.

The Supreme Court’s resolution of the issue will be closely watched because 81 judges - nearly one-third of the state’s judicial bench - have been subjected to late dues suspensions since 2006. Overall, court records show that more than 6,000 suspensions were issued over that time to nearly 4,000 of the state’s approximately 8,200 active lawyers.

Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges get a warning from their staffs, who collect the fees, shortly before the dues are due in March, according to testimony at a recent hearing.

The suspensions are imposed under the authority of the high court’s rules governing admission to the bar. The question raised by the lawsuits was whether a late-dues suspension resulted in a lapse of an attorney’s law license sufficient to disqualify a candidate from the meeting the constitutional requirement that elected circuit judges be licensed for six years before assuming office.

Special Circuit Judge Sam Bird ruled that while lawyers who pay late do have their law licenses suspended, the suspensions last only until they pay their dues and required late fees.

The license is then reinstated as provided for under the high court’s rules, Bird said in his ruling, which rejected a lawsuit against Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox, who is up for re-election.

Bird said the rule’s intention was to compel lawyers to pay their licensing fees by their March 1 due date, not to endanger anyone’s license.

The only time a dues delinquency can result in a license suspension that is not eligible for reinstatement through paying the late fee is when a lawyer has been not paid dues for three years in a row, under the high court rules, Bird said.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen ruled in a different case that the dues suspensions are an unconstitutional violation of a lawyer’s due process rights and ordered the Supreme Court clerk, who administers licensing and fees, to cease the practice.

Griffen, deciding in favor of incumbent Judge H.G. Foster and lawyer Angela Byrd, ruled that the clerk, Les Steen, could not suspend an attorney’s law license without giving the lawyer notice that the sanction was about to be imposed and an opportunity to contest the suspension.

According to testimony, the only notice lawyers get is a December form letter from the clerk’s office warning that the licensing fee is due as of Jan. 1 and becomes delinquent after March 1, a warning that Griffen said was not sufficient.

The fourth candidate, Valerie Thompson Bailey, was disqualified by Special Circuit Judge John Cole. He ruled that her multiyear suspension for late fees and failing to receive required ongoing training made her ineligible, although she was reinstated in 2011. Cole’s ruling is understood to be limited to only Bailey.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a petition from Foster to immediately weigh in on the question of license suspensions and judicial eligibility. Now comes the appeals from Bailey and those who lost their suits in challenging Foster, Byrd and Fox.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/22/2014

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