Arkansas attorney general asks court to dismiss Board of Corrections records case he wants to settle

A years-long lawsuit between the Arkansas Board of Corrections and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin “will unlawfully and indefinitely continue” unless the state Supreme Court orders a judge to dismiss the case, attorneys with Griffin’s office argue in court filings.

“There’s no reason to litigate a settled case,” Griffin’s office argued in an emergency petition filed Friday. “But the circuit court decided that the litigation must go on.”

The Republican attorney general’s filing asked justices to order the lower court to grant the voluntary dismissal of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the attorney general’s office. Pulaski County Judge Tim Fox refrained from ruling on Griffin’s request after a hearing earlier this month. 

Arkansas judge doesn’t immediately rule on bid to settle suit between Griffin, Corrections board

Griffin’s filing requested justices rule by Monday afternoon, but the Supreme Court had not issued a ruling as of Tuesday afternoon. 

The emergency request for justices to intervene in the case is the latest in a public records lawsuit that has ping-ponged between Pulaski County Circuit Court and the Arkansas Supreme Court for nearly two and a half years.

Griffin sued the board in 2023, claiming public records and meetings law violations connected to the board’s hiring of an attorney to represent it in a lawsuit against Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. 

Abtin Mehdizadegan and his law firm, Hall Booth Smith, were fired earlier this year after Sanders’ appointments gave the governor a 4-3 majority on the seven-member Board of Corrections.

The four Sanders appointees voted in March to settle both lawsuits — over the objections of Lee Watson, an appointee of former Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson. The settlement in the public records case required the board admit to three violations of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

Griffin’s office moved to voluntarily dismiss the FOIA lawsuit after the settlement was approved. Watson and former board chairman Benny Magness, whose term on the board ended in December, objected in court filings and said the settlements attributed FOIA violations to them as individuals, in violation of their due process rights, while damaging their reputations as public servants.

During this month’s hearing, Fox held off on granting the voluntary dismissal. Fox said during the hearing that this was to determine if the settlement affected Magness and Watson, who said they were not involved in the negotiations over the agreement.

But Griffin’s office said Fox “made clear at the hearing that it has no intention of letting the attorney general nonsuit the litigation.”

Fox is “forcing the parties to continue litigating” by granting the intervention motion, Griffin’s office wrote. 

“The circuit court is only waiting to ‘formally enter[] an order’ granting intervention, so that the record appears ‘straight by the book,’” the filing said. 

Fox had not issued a ruling on the intervention motion as of Tuesday, according to online court records. 

During the May 4 hearing, he initially granted the motion before backtracking in order to allow the attorney general’s office time to respond to the motion. Griffin’s office filed its response Monday, after it requested the Supreme Court dismiss the case.