100 years ago
April 20, 1918
Pine Bluff -- Joe Brown today pleaded guilty to bringing whiskey into the state for another man and was fined $100 by Municipal Judge Earl Wood. About 40 gallons of whiskey, seized when Brown was arrested here last Monday morning, was poured into the Arkansas River by Constable C.C. Green, acting under orders of the court. Brown was arrested with R.E. Brown and Jack Williams of Lonoke as the three were passing through the city with an automobile loaded with whiskey.
50 years ago
April 20, 1968
WALNUT RIDGE -- The Lawrence County Circuit Court jury hearing the first-degree murder trial of Mrs. Mrytle Clark, 52, was ordered to recess for the night Friday after it reported to the Judge Andrew Ponder that it was still dead-locked 6 to 6 after nearly 10 hours of deliberation. Earlier in the afternoon, Mrs. Clark, accused of the shooting death of her husband, Millard Clark, 51, on March 18, 1967, was helped from the courtroom weeping when the all-male jury said it couldn't reach a verdict and was ordered back into the jury room for deliberation until it had reached a decision.
25 years ago
April 20, 1993
• On the night a Jacksonville police officer allegedly violated jail policy, the Jacksonville Jail itself was apparently in violation of state law. Police Chief Don Tate confirmed that the jail was overcrowded on Jan. 17 with as many as 13 prisoners sleeping on the floor. He also confirmed there was no jail matron on duty even though a female prisoner was being held. Tate fired officer Mark Monaco on April 1 after he was accused by Tate of violating jail security on Jan. 17 only hours after there had been a "riot" in the jail Jan. 16.
10 years ago
April 20, 2008
• Randy Harden stopped by his Little Rock home one Tuesday late in February on a break from his construction job. He heard a knock on the door. It was Pulaski County sheriff's Deputy Ken Turner, there to arrest Harden, 42, and take him to jail. Harden had committed no crime. Rather, he had failed to pay a debt of $10,436.16 to a lumber company, failed to file in court a list of assets required under Arkansas law and failed to show up before a judge to explain why. Increasingly in central Arkansas, attorneys and some private citizens are using a document called a "body attachment" to require sheriff's deputies to arrest debtors who make the same legal missteps Harden made.
Metro on 04/20/2018