The head of the state's judicial ethics commission on Thursday publicly dismissed an ethics complaint filed against a Supreme Court justice over an endorsement from a gun rights group during her last campaign.
Justice Courtney Goodson, who ultimately lost her bid to become the next Arkansas Supreme Court chief justice, was cleared of any ethics violations by promoting an endorsement from the National Rifle Association on her campaign's social media pages.
In a letter to Goodson, the head of the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, David Sachar, wrote that the anonymous complaint filed against her gave his group "insufficient cause" to proceed further.
The complaint alleged that Goodson violated several ethics standards by promoting an endorsement from the NRA, which the complaint described as a "major political force." Judges are barred from accepting endorsements from a "political organization."
Sachar's note to Goodson stated that the NRA endorses candidates in multiple political parties and that it would be "unreasonable to categorize them as a partisan political organization [under ethics standards]."
Metro on 05/06/2016