Judge candidates line up at Rogers-Lowell Chamber forum
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/61628/
ROGERS — A dozen judicial candidates attended the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce’s forum Thursday. All of them answered questions, but only three made a joke about the audience having to listen to 12 lawyers.
The forum fielded three candidates each for the district courts in Rogers and Bentonville and two each for circuit courts divisions 1 and 6 and the court of appeals.
With so many candidates on hand, there was only time for two questions each. The first, asking the candidates their thoughts on sending someone to jail, offered little insight — each candidate gave a variation of the theme of responsible willingness, meaning they would respect that authority but use it only when necessary. The appeals court candidates were the only exceptions, as those who would appear before them would likely have already been sentenced to jail. The candidates talked about the process of reviewing the prior cases.
The second question, however, brought a variety of answers, as the candidates were asked to describe a decision they found hard to make.
In the Rogers District Court race, Ben Lipscomb opened by talking about eminent domain and the difficulty in deciding to take someone’s property for the public good. Casey Croxton talked about a client he defended who tried to bribe him to withhold evidence — Croxton withdrew from the case. Brad Karren talked about his impulsivity as a young prosecutor and how he stopped being ruled by his emotions.
In the Bentonville District Court race, Stephen Geigle talked about his decision to stand by his convictions when his judicial decisions were being chronically overturned by the appeals court judge. John Skaggs said his hardest decisions involved the very young and the very old, especially an old woman whose driver’s license he considered revoking. Lisa Gaddy deviated from the question, talking about how her most difficult cases were ones during which she watched parents fail to care for their children.
In the Circuit Court Division 1 race, Robin Green said the most difficult decision was over the fate of an officer involved in a shooting, a decision she later left to others to make. Jim Johnson said his most difficult decision was to protect his client’s rights or abandon the client for fear of being prosecuted himself — he did the former.
In the Circuit Court Division 6 race, Ray Bunch said his most difficult decision was to pursue the death penalty against four individuals. Doug Schrantz said his was in fairly defending a man guilty of sexual abuse of children.
In the appeals court race, Courtney Henry said her most difficult decision was to find her biological father during her college years. Ron Williams said his was a decision between protecting the reputation of a man accused of child abuse or protecting the alleged victim by pushing the case to trial.