New ad by group targets judge running for state's high court over tossed rape conviction

The conservative Washington, D.C.-based group that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in ads targeting Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson turned its aim recently on one of her political opponents: Court of Appeals Judge Kenneth Hixson.

A new ad declaring the appellate judge "soft on crime" is being aired by the Judicial Crisis Network. It focuses on the case of Ramon Perez, who was released from prison in 2016 after an appellate panel that included Hixson overturned Perez's conviction in the rape of a 12-year-old girl.

Hixson responded Monday morning, saying that "dark money and special interest groups are trying to buy a seat on the Arkansas Supreme Court." So-called dark money groups are not required to disclose the sources of the money they receive.

Also on Monday, Goodson filed a pair of lawsuits seeking to block Arkansas TV stations from running the Judicial Crisis Network's ads against her.

Hixson has not joined her suit, and his campaign said it is not planning its own legal action.

The third candidate in the Supreme Court race is top Department of Human Services attorney David Sterling, who has denied having anything to do with outside ads.

Perez, of Ward, was convicted of the rape in 2014, but his sentence was tossed in early 2016 by a five-judge panel of the Arkansas Court of Appeals, which determined that prosecutors should not have been allowed to play tapes of the girl's entire interview with police, and that her testimony contained inconsistencies that could not be backed up by physical evidence.

Hixson wrote the majority opinion in the decision, which was agreed to by four of the panel's five judges.

The ad claims that the case was thrown out on a technicality and that Perez is "still on run, threatening children every day."

After having his conviction overturned, Perez was released from prison in May 2016.

Lonoke County prosecutor Chuck Graham, who is now in charge of the case, said his office pursued the charges again but that Perez failed to show up for a hearing on Dec. 20 of last year and has an active warrant out for his arrest.

Graham said he had not seen the commercial and declined to say whether he believed criticisms of Hixson's involvement in the case were fair.

"The rule of law and the rights afforded under our constitution are not technicalities," Hixson said in a statement. "The rules apply to everyone and not just the few and the privileged."

Joshua Silverstein, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's William H. Bowen School of Law, said ads that raise fear over the release of criminals are not new to political campaigns.

"Those ads are almost universally deceptive and dishonest," said Silverstein. "By failing to disclose the contextual surroundings intentionally, they are in effect false."

The Judicial Crisis Network's policy director, Carrie Severino, did not return a phone call seeking comment Monday.

Instead, a spokesman responded to questions by providing a statement that repeated the allegations made in the ad.

Responding to the ad, Goodson said Monday that "no one should buy what dark money is selling." Sterling said he had not seen the ad and declined to comment.

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