CHARLESTON, Ark. — At a town hall meeting Thursday, hundreds of residents got to hear answers from state officials on a state prison planned to be built in Franklin County. Friday morning, the Arkansas Board of Corrections voted to approve the purchase of land for that new state prison.
During that two hall State Sen. Gary Stubblefield and Franklin County Judge Ricky Bowman argued the Arkansas Board of Corrections and the governor's office violated the law by not holding a public hearing on the land.
They argued A.C.A. L2-25-70L which is titled "Location or Construction of Residential Facilities for Sexual and Violent Offenders - Public Hearings" could apply to this.
The statute has a "30-day requirement for the state to conduct a public hearing in the municipality or county of the proposed location of the facility prior to the contracting for the acquisition of any property on which to locate the proposed facility and before there is a vote to approve by the prison board" according to Jeff Phillips, prosecuting attorney for the 5th Judicial District that contains Franklin County.
Stubblefield and Bowman requested Phillips file an injunction against the vote before Friday morning. Phillips said it's not that simple.
"Everybody just assumed it was a valid remedy under the law and pretty much instructed me to go and make get it done by 9 a.m. the next morning," Phillips said.
After doing some research, he learned A.C.A. L2-25-70L only applies to "community based residential facilities," not state penitentiaries.
"It seems to encompass those transition places where people would be paroling out of a penitentiary into a transitional setting where they would be more in contact with the community, so the community would have a bigger stake in a placement of such a facility there in their community," Phillips said.
In order for a judge to rule in their favor, Phillips said the vote would've needed to have caused irreparable harm and "whether the moving party has demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merit."
"Even if they were awarding contracts and contractors were relying on this and had done something to their detriment, I think that would be irreparable harm. But that's not where we're at. We're at this morning. We were at a vote to see how this goes forward. And at that point, it's tough to argue that irreparable harm was occurring at 9:05 this morning," Phillips explained.
"Irreparable harm would have been very tough, if not impossible, to prove, and then you have to convince the circuit judge that you have merit to the case, that you're likely to win the case. Based upon the statute and the definition of penitentiary, I don't think we have those criteria as well. You need both and I think we fail on both," Phillips added.
He said this is why they didn't file the injection this morning, but he's not ruling out any options for other legal action that could be taken for the situation.
"If it's statutorily required for them to do certain things and they don't, then the answer is yes. If there aren't those statutory protections, then it's going to be hard pressed to accuse them of doing any of violating the law. Now, as to the politics of it, or the optics of it, that's a whole other argument and so far, it doesn't look good," Phillips said. "I'll be working in conjunction with stakeholders in my county and my district, because it's impactful in a lot of different ways."
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