House Judiciary Committee
Video
Transcript
Bills discussed (9)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
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SB237
· 3 mentions in transcript, chapter
Matched: “…out of order a little bit today. We're going to start with Senate Bill 237. Representative Steele, you're recognized to present Senate…”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB92
· 3 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “SB92”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1192
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1192”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1257
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1257”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1258
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1258”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB131
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB131”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB150
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB150”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB219
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB219”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB57
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB57”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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- October 3, 2026
Chair
Unverified
0:00
If you want to testify today, you need to sign up on the sign-up sheet because once we pull that sheet, that's it.
Chair
Unverified
3:00
All right, everybody. Chair sees a quorum. Let's call this meeting to order. Last shot. If you're going to want to testify for and against the bill, go ahead and sign up now. That's it. All right. Without objection, we're going to go out of order a little bit today. We're going to start with Senate Bill 237. Representative Steele, you're recognized to present Senate Bill 237
Representative Steele, before you get started, I want to just make a little point of order here And to anybody that's going to testify for or against the bill We've got a lot on our calendar today This is not a discussion about the death penalty in general That's not why we're here We're here to talk about what the Supreme Court has handed down and the fix of it So I just want to make sure everybody stays focused on
the bill. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I introduce my witnesses here, I want to thank Representative Hickerson and Senator Hickey for letting us jump in line here.
These are both very important bills, and I know there are several other very important bills. But we're honored right now, Mr. Chairman, to have a friend of mine, a friend of the chairs, and somebody we're all proud to have is our Attorney General, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, and I'll let him introduce himself
Speaker 11
4:28
and his staff. General, good to have you recognized, sir. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, members. I'm Dustin McDaniel. I'm the Attorney General.
Speaker 12
4:34
This is Chief Deputy Attorney General Brad Phelps. We're here along with Representative Steele on SB 237.
This is a bill designed to respond to the Supreme Court's instructions on our last attempt to clarify the procedures by which the Department of Corrections may outline the method of carrying out executions for the 37 inmates that we have on death row. The Supreme Court said that the General Assembly had excessively delegated its authority in the 2009 statute. We have clarified that in this bill. We didn't have great direction from the court in their opinion,
so we have worked very diligently. the staff of the Attorney General's Office, the Department of Corrections, BLR, the sponsors, and we feel confident that we have appropriately articulated the drug protocol and the Department's procedures. We'll certainly answer any questions, and we would appreciate a good vote. Any questions from committee? It
looks like we have somebody wishing to speak.
Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Walker, you're recognized. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr. Attorney. Good morning. Could you tell me what the
barbiturate is that you propose to use to bring about the death of a condemned prisoner?
Speaker 12
6:12
Well, what is articulated in the bill is a class of drugs, which are barbiturates as a class,
and that leaves the Department of Corrections to identify what available drugs are on the market pursuant to their own policies.
So this means that anyone that you choose to use will
Speaker 12
6:33
be satisfactory? No, I think they would have to articulate or follow their procedure, and Brad's pointing me to the... Yeah, obviously, it would be an amount sufficient to cause death
and the barbiturate class would have to be consistent with medical
practices. That gives the people at the prison quite a bit of discretion, doesn't
it, as to whether to enact punishment that could possibly be cruel and unusual. Well, they are
Speaker 12
7:08
still expected to follow the law. They are still expected to comply with the Constitution. And in the last bill, the legislature gave them instructions down to the specific drug,
and that didn't work for a number of reasons, including the lack of availability of that particular drug. So this gives a wider range of discretion and mirrors what's done
in how many other states? Nine other states. Well, the lack of availability would still be present, possibly, but it gives so much more discretion to non-legislators, non-elected people, to unidentified persons to determine
the method for bringing about one's death. And don't you think that that brings about the possibility of other constitutional challenges as well? Well, obviously
Speaker 12
8:01
we're going to be sued no matter what bill we pass, and we're prepared for that. But the department would, of course, have to disclose what drug they choose in advance. If there's any reason to believe that they have not selected a proper barbiturate or a proper amount, that could be and would be challenged. In fact, I'm sure no matter what they select and identify in advance,
we're going to have to be arguing it at the Supreme Court to explain that they have chosen the proper drug and in the proper amount and in the proper procedure. All you're doing is saying they have to use a barbiturate, they have to use it in an amount sufficient to cause death, and they have to articulate their procedures properly in accordance with what you've authorized them to do rather than having too much power, which is what the Supreme Court said was the problem with the last bill. May I have a follow-up question? If you could, just make it brief, Mr. Walker. Yes, sir.
Where are the guidelines set out that govern the exercise of discretion by the prison administrators in selection of a barbiturate or
in the administration of a barbiturate for this purpose? Well, they'll
Speaker 12
9:12
have to promulgate rules pursuant to the statute that you give them. Obviously, the General Assembly cannot legislate every step of the process. All executive branch functions is the execution of the laws that are promulgated by and passed by the General Assembly.
And so they're going to have to exercise some human discretion in the process. But there is no process with greater oversight by the public or the courts than the death penalty. And so as they go through that, it will be in accordance
to the law. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Representative Ballinger.
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
9:53
Thank you, Chairman. The nature of barbiturates, are they essentially, they have the same function on you? So what we're talking about is a specific class of drugs that will have the same result,
just maybe in different ways depending on how it's used in dosage. So we're narrowing it down to one class of drugs that has one effect on a person. Would
Speaker 12
10:14
that be correct? Correct. You are instructing the Department of Corrections that they must operate within a class of drugs in an amount sufficient to cause death. And then they will have the discretion to identify which drugs are available and, in accordance to medical procedures, what the amounts would be. Thank you. All right, I believe Rita Scholar.
Scholar, sorry. Ms. Scholar, you recognize that you'll
Speaker 51
11:00
just remind everybody who you are, please. MS. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, everybody. I'm the Executive Director of the ACLU of Arkansas. Had to think there a minute. It's been busy. Well, this isn't
a discussion of the death penalty, and I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. I would respectfully disagree with the Attorney General, that there is no process, procedure that has more oversight. There is very little oversight. As he said, there are problems, the same problems that the court described in the case discussed with just mentioning a broad range of drugs without
talking about the specific drug, as Representative Walker pointed out. Plus, if it's such an open procedure, why isn't it subject to the Freedom of Information Act and the Administrative Procedures Act? Why shouldn't there be public review? In the past, security has been stated as the reason. We're not asking where the guards are posted and where the keys are and those kinds of
things. We just want to know if you're going to kill somebody in the name of the people, how you're going to do it. I think that it should be a completely open process so that the people can openly sign on to it if that's what they want. This is really just a matter of open government. So our main problems with it are the lack of specificity of drugs and the lack of openness, aside from, of course, the general practice of poisoning somebody to death.
I'll be happy to take questions. Seeing none, Ms. Sklar,
thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. Nobody
else has signed up. Representative Steele, do you all want to close for your bill? Yes, Mr. Chairman, thank you. And I want to thank, again, the Attorney General and his staff. I worked with them through this process, and they're second to none as far as their research here. And I just want to thank the committee for their questions and their concerns. I know this is not a simple issue.
And as the Attorney General alluded to, there's no shortage of law on this subject. I don't know if there's any subject in all of the law that has more controlling precedent than this subject. So I think this law is pretty clear. I think this statute is the best statute that we can promulgate to accomplish what we were charged with accomplishing. So I'd appreciate a good vote. Thank you, Representative Steele. What's the pleasure of the committee? It
looks like Representative Gillum has a motion. Representative Gillum has a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to do pass.
Got a motion. Do pass. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, congratulations, Pastor Bill. All right,
next, without objection, we're going to go out of order. We're going to go to second page,
Senate Bill 92, Representative Hickerson, Senator Hickey. Yes, Senator, that would be fine.
Thank you for asking. Representative Hickerson, Senator Hickey, you're recognized to present your
Representative Mary P. "Prissy" Hickerson
Unverified
14:44
bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Hickey is going to present the bill. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 66
14:57
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. What this is is Senate Bill 92, and what it does is amend the limitation periods for certain sex crimes that involve minors.
Just to give you a little information, currently, if a child is abused, a prosecution against the perpetrator must be brought before the victim reaches 28 years of age. The crimes in which this limitation is removed are as follows, and I know you can read this, but I'll go over them for the people in the audience. Starting with D would be rape if the victim was a minor at the time of the offense, sexual indecency with a child, sexual assault in the first degree, sexual assault in the second degree if the victim was a minor at the time of the offense,
incest if the victim was a minor at the time of the offense, engaging children in sexually explicit conduct for use in visual or print medium, transportation of minors for prohibited sexual conduct, employing or consenting to the use of a child in a sexual performance, producing, directing, or promoting a sexual performance by a child, and computer exploitation of a child in the first degree. That pretty much finishes my opening comments, Mr. Chairman.
I do have some witnesses here that would like to testify. The instance which they are going to testify about is what initiated the need to change this law. I have Matt Smith right here with me. He's an attorney in Little Rock, and also Mark Smith. He is a neurosurgeon in Texarkana. So with that, I'll
turn it back to you, sir. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Smith and Mr. Smith, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 70
16:41
I'd first off like to thank this committee for having us here today,
as well as the sponsors of our bill and the co-sponsors for their ongoing support. As a young child growing up in Texarkana, as many young boys my age did, my world revolved around the baseball field. The entire summers were spent at both mine and my brother's practices, ball games, tournaments, team meetings, parent meetings, etc. I look forward to that time of year for the rest of the months.
That all changed when I was eight and nine years old, when I came to know Richard Roberts. Richard Roberts was a coach of my brother's team and eventually my team. He had been involved in the baseball for several years. And once I started playing with him, I'm sorry, once my brother started playing with him on his team, he began sexually assaulting me over the span of two years.
The abuse was as prolific, repetitive, and heinous as can be imagined. I kept this secret to myself. I never went to the authorities. Out of shame, embarrassment, perceived social perceptions, and even fear. I kept this secret until I was over 30 years old. In January of last year, on a Sunday evening, my phone rang, and it was my brother. He evidently had seen Richard Roberts at the baseball field coaching another team,
and he knew he had to act. He asked me if I had been molested, and we each confirmed each other's beliefs that, indeed, both of us had been abused. I knew at that time I had to come forward, and I could not stand by. Over the next three months, we cooperated with the Texas County Arkansas Police Department in attempting to prosecute this man. Over that time, a multitude of victims came forward. Several gave statements.
Some would not give a statement because they knew that the statute of limitations was in effect, and so there was nothing they could do. In March or April of last year, we were literally sitting in a position where we had over 10 statements of men that were my age or above detailing the similar abuse suffered at the hands of Richard Roberts. We had him on tape admitting to a good deal of that abuse, and literally there was nothing we could do about it. We couldn't even get him on the sexual offenders list.
I knew at that time that the law needed to be changed. And luckily for us, in one of his interrogations, he admitted to and corroborated my testimony and admitted to taking me on a fishing trip to Beards Lake up around Millwood for the purpose of sexually assaulting me. Well, Highway 71 crosses into Texas for three miles before it goes over the Red River. Because of this, he was therefore in violation of the Mann Act and with interstate commerce,
transporting a child over state lines for the purpose of sexual assault. The federal government does not have a statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors. Therefore, we were able to testify in front of the grand jury in August. He pled guilty to one count of transporting a minor across state lines for sexual assault. He remains in jail right now waiting to be sentenced. Currently, there is no statute of limitations for murder. And while I recognize that murder and sexual assault of a child are two completely different offenses,
the reasons for no statute of limitations are similar. The unique characteristics of sex crimes against children and the inherent inequality and social stature between the victim and the perpetrator mean that the victim oftentimes will not be able to bring themselves to come forward. In this, Dr. Richard Gartner, a psychologist and psychoanalyst and a sometimes New York Times op-ed contributor,
stated that men spend years putting their emotions in deep freeze or masking post-traumatic reactions with self-defeating behaviors. Perpetrators should not be protected by the very emotional scars that they intentionally inflicted on their victims. Murder doesn't have a statute of limitations because the victims are obviously not there to come forward and stand up for themselves. Likewise, many victims of child sexual abuse are equally unable to do so.
In researching this issue, I found a few arguments for a statute of limitations in a broad concept, not just specifically to sexual assault of minors. People argue that law enforcement prosecutors should act judiciously. I submit that this ignores the unique characteristics of the crime, and because of the perpetrator's actions, oftentimes a long period of time will expire between when the assault occurs and when the victim is able to come forward.
Also, they would argue that prosecution should be based on the most recent and reliable evidence. And while I agree with this, it's important to note what this bill doesn't do. We're not removing any burden of proof. All of the rules of evidence that would be applicable in a regular prosecution are still there. I have full faith and credit in our prosecution system, and I think it can protect in that realm. Finally, some would argue that statute of limitations are necessary to provide closure
for those who had committed the crime, so that they don't have to live in the past and constantly look over their shoulder. I don't believe this is appropriate for actions that are so heinous and oftentimes ongoing. I asked the committee to consider, is this crime really worthy of public absolution? John Worthing, an attorney and CNN contributor, stated in dealing with sexual statute of limitations for sex crimes against minors,
stated that shutting the door on accusers only serves to arm the molesters was still another advantage in an already unfair fight. Seventeen states and the federal government have completely done away with statute of limitations for sexual assaults of minors. All but three of those occurred in the last ten years. The trend in the country is definitely to remove the statute of limitations. As I'm sure you're aware, the duty of the House Judiciary Committee is to protect the Arkansas judiciary's integrity and efficiency.
I think this bill does just that. I would go further and say your duty as an elected representative of the state of the Arkansas and more importantly, your duty as an inhabitant of this small planet is to protect our children and protect our future children. This can be accomplished and assisted with this bill. As the current law still stands, the main benefactor is the predator.
It's important to consider that had we not lived in Texarkana, had we not been in a border city, had he not taken me on a fishing trip that crossed Highway 71 for three miles into Texas, we've literally had all of that evidence and admission and not been able to do anything about it. Now, obviously, his threat to children in Texarkana was somewhat diminished because of local press coverage when all this occurred. However, Richard Roberts could have moved. He could have packed his things up and left. He could have moved to Eldorado,
to Prescott, to Foreman. He could have moved to your district and signed up to coach your son or your grandson's baseball team, and you would be none the wiser. In January of last year when my brother called me, he ended the conversation by saying, you know, Matt, through a lot of counseling and thinking about it, I've been able to come to terms that what Richard Roberts did to me when I was a child was not my fault. But what Richard Roberts does to children from this point on is my fault. I think that same standard would apply to the committee and the bill before
I'm glad to take any questions. Thank you. Mr. Smith,
thank you. Mr. Smith, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
Speaker 77
25:47
having us here and for us to be able to tell our stories of what happened and our support for this bill. I would also like to say before I start my story that, you know, I know these are very emotional and deep, touchy issues. and I just want to invite, if not beg, for questions when I'm done talking.
I'm very comfortable answering them, and if there are questions or concerns about what I say or understanding of some of the things I say, I beg and invite questions when I'm done. I would like to talk to you a little bit about my story, which unfortunately is very ununique. It's a very common story when I talk to guys that were abused by the same man I was as well as guys that I've talked to that were abused by other people. It's just not a very unique story, unfortunately.
I would like to talk about my story, what happened, why people tend to not come forward in a timely fashion, and the need to have this bill changed. When I was seven, eight years old, I was playing t-ball there in Texarkana. And just like every other kid, when I moved up to Little League, I wanted to play for the best team in the city. Luckily, I thought the coach of that team, Richard Roberts, was coming to all my t-ball games and befriending my parents, befriending me, came to all my games.
I was excited. I knew I was going to get in and get to play on his team and couldn't be happier. My nine-year-old, which completed my t-ball career, he began sexually abusing me. I never told anybody, and this continued until I was about the age of 14. He coached me through this entire period, never told a soul. I didn't tell anyone, and it wasn't because I was a shy kid per se. It wasn't because I wasn't a confident kid.
It wasn't because I didn't have a good relationship with my parents. My parents did ask me, not specifically about him, but have I been touched? You know, his parents do with kids, and I always said no. I never dreamed of saying yes. This continued until I was 14. at which time I quit playing for him, moved on to a different league. The abuse stopped, of course, and I would see him here and there umpiring baseball games, coaching baseball games, and just terrified every time I saw him.
The audacity of these people, he would come up, put his arm around me, talk to me when I was 17 years old, and I would stand there stone-faced, scared to death, and just nodding my head yes or no to whatever he was asking. Went on to college. Well, approximately at the age of 15, I did tell one person about the abuse and told very limited details in response to something she had told me that was similar. And just to validate her story, I told her something similar had happened to me but didn't go much into it further than that.
Went to college, and around the age of 20, there were some circles back home, I guess, that had started talking about possibly him abusing some of the kids he had coached. This was never taken to the authorities. It was circles within the baseball community there. He was no longer coaching at that time. A friend of mine gave me the call and let me know that they were talking about that. They didn't really ask me if it had happened to me. He was just letting me know that they were talking about it down there, and he had heard that.
I knew I would be getting another phone call at some point asking specifically had that happened to me, and I knew who that phone call would come from. And when I got that phone call from my friend, I left my dorm room and drove around in my truck for several hours, scared to death. At 20 years old, a very confident college student, no fears per se in the world other than not getting into the grad school I wanted to go to. I was terrified that people in Texas Canada were going to find out I was abused. I was trying to figure out what kind of lying story I was going to come up with.
So when I got that phone call I knew was coming, I could convince that person it never happened. I was lucky. I don't know. I guess I was just lucky, but it didn't happen. And I did receive that phone call. And when I received it, I emphatically denied being abused. I emphatically stated I didn't want to have that conversation ever again. And moved on. Case closed. Went to medical school. Continued through medical school. Never speaking of this. Telling anyone. got married my wife asked me at some point around the age of 27 28 I don't
know how old I was mentioned that to me because she had heard from a reliable source that it had possibly happened and I denied it I wasn't ready was not ready to tell her or anybody else what had happened certainly not talk about it I continued through medical school, residency, and then moved my family from here in Little Rock to Texarkana. As soon as we moved to Texarkana, it was kind of the middle of the baseball season, and of course I was going to put my kids in baseball at the same place I played when I was a kid,
same organization, but didn't have much time to think about or research who I wanted them to play for. Put my kid, my middle son, on a t-ball team. I had an older son that was a machine pitch team, which I was coaching, and in third, fourth, fifth practice or second game, I don't know, it was the first time I'd had the opportunity to come see that son play. And he was on the same field with Richard Roberts' grandson, and Richard Roberts was in the bleachers watching him play baseball. At the time, I was 34 years old, a surgeon there in Texarkana,
very confident, not scared of a whole lot, and I was terrified to go to those games, terrified he was going to look at me, talk to me, any of that. Of course, he didn't approximate himself around my son. He knew, obviously, that I knew what he was. Did not try to talk to me, stayed away from me. But he did start interacting with those kids. What looked very innocent, I knew wasn't innocent. As he would do when I played for him, he would align himself at the dugout there at the end of the game
when the kids put out their hands together and yell for their team and run out of the dugout. and he's tapping every one of them on the rear end as they come out. Not my kid, but every other one. Very innocent appearing, but not innocent. It was at that time that the fear and the shame and the anger and the embarrassment that's kept this so far down deep inside of me, I couldn't reach it with both arms, turned into just anger and hatred. And now it was a different role. God did something in my head that just changed everything that day.
And I approached the gentleman and told him not to come to the ball field. I knew what he was, what he would do. I didn't care why he didn't come. He could make up whatever story he wanted to, but he was not to come back to that baseball complex and be around those kids. And I didn't see him the rest of that summer. So I felt it was a victory. It was not enough, but at the time it was something I could do without anybody else knowing and felt like I had accomplished something. later that fall or winter baseball I was again coaching that same child
he had moved up to a different league and I had left the hospital in my scrubs and changed into my coaching stuff in the truck on the way and hit the parking lot jumped out because he had forgotten his sunglasses and ran across the field just before the game started to give him his sunglasses at shortstop turn around and run off the field and there's Richard Roberts coaching first base so even with the threat of me going to the authorities after telling him six months or so in advance that I was going to do that if he came back out there, he showed back up to coach I didn't speak to him per se that day
other than just, you know, I told you I left and I called the police and gave a statement I had known that my statute was up I knew there was nothing legally I could do to him But nevertheless, I was wanting to not have him at that baseball field, if nothing else. The investigation ensued that Matt referred to. Multiple victims came forward with statements. Three times that many would admit to me it happened but would not give a statement
because it was not under statute. Nothing was going to be done. All they were going to do was be embarrassed and embarrass their family by coming forward. in fact by his own statement there were victims in the statute that he admitted to that sitting here right now I can tell you will deny it prosecutable cases that those victims that he admitted to abusing will not admit to being abused and
Speaker 76
34:37
that goes to the depth and how deep you can
Speaker 77
34:40
put this inside you and lock it away and not go after it at some point you will hopefully But these guys were just not ready. Luckily, if you put it that way, he did commit a federal crime, and he was able to be prosecuted. I can tell you, at 9 years old, at 14 years old, I was not ready. And not that I wouldn't come forward. That's not what I'm saying. It's the fact that I would lie that it wasn't happening. I lied about it as a teenager. I lied about it in my 20s.
I lied about it almost 30. To the people I cared about
Speaker 89
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the most, that I trusted the most, I would sit, look at these people dead in the eye and lie about
Speaker 76
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it happening. As far as what makes people not come forward, it's just so deep. The connotation of especially male-on-male sexual abuse, you can't get there by yourself most times. Something has to happen. You don't
Speaker 77
35:36
wake up one day and say, I think I'm going to go tell somebody. It can't happen.
It doesn't happen. Something has to happen. Some change in your life, a major event has to convince you that it's okay and there is no guilt, there is no shame, there is no embarrassment. I can talk about this stuff, but you can't put a time limit on that. It's going to happen when it happens. In regards to the law, I don't know much about the law. I'm not an attorney. I'm not a law enforcement officer. I do know that in order to convict somebody of a crime, you have to convince 12 of their peers with credible and reliable evidence that they did something.
And those people have to believe it, and then they have to find that person guilty. Statistically speaking, several people at this table have been abused. And statistically speaking, most of those people, two, three, whatever it is, based on statistics, haven't told anyone. and those people know that that evidence that you carry around is reliable and it is credible and those events that happened when you were 5, 15, 17, whatever it was is just as vivid today as it was when it happened
and to give you a hypothetical a child is taken from Texas to Oklahoma and is sexually abused our federal lawmakers believe that child whether he's 5, 10, or 15 is reliable and credible to bring a case and prosecute it I would argue that Arkansans are just as reliable and credible and capable of remembering these events. I'm lucky. I'm privileged. I can afford a lot of good counseling, and that allows me to sit here in front of you guys and talk about this.
I can sit down with a perfect stranger or my best friend and talk about all the gory details. I can go talk to victims who it's happened to, talk to kids who it hasn't hopefully happened to yet. that allows me to sit here today and talk to you guys. The vast majority of the people we're trying to protect will not have that opportunity. They will not be able to afford counseling. They will not be able to take off work to do it. They're going to have to do this on their own. And whenever they see their child on the same baseball field with someone they know is a child molester,
whether it's a death in their family, whether it's something they see in the news, whenever God drops that anvil on their head and they realize that it's okay, that you're not guilty of anything there's no shame there's no guilt there's no embarrassment by coming forward what we're trying to do here today is at least when they do realize that and get that courage that they're met with at least the opportunity for justice that's what we're asking for thank you I'd be happy to answer any
questions thank you dr. Smith I believe
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
38:22
Representative Gilliam had a question. Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, and this one's directed, I guess, in y'all's direction as well, and I apologize this didn't come up until the testimony began. But my question is, does this particular piece of legislation, this bill, concurrent to our rules or pursuant to our rules,
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38:41
rather, require an impact statement from the Department of Corrections?
Speaker 68
38:46
Sir, I did get one of those. Or let me rephrase it. We attempted to get one. It actually had to go through the Arkansas Sentencing Commission, and it took a couple
of weeks. And the impact come back that cannot be determined at this time. So I do have that here if the committee would like me to pass it around or bring it to the Chair. Hold on just –
I think we're checking to see if we can drop it on the tablets. While we're
doing that, are there – and Representative Gilliam, I don't want to cut you off. If we can, we're going to find that information for you. Are there any – anybody else on the committee have a question?
Representative Mary P. "Prissy" Hickerson
Unverified
39:28
Yes, Representative Hickerson. Thank you, Representative Vines. I just wanted to point out that Brent Gasper is also here if there are any technical questions on the bill. Okay. Just on
Chair
Unverified
39:40
the drafting. Okay. Representative Steele, you recognized?
Very briefly. Thank you all so much for coming and testifying. I know it's not easy. and thank you also for your
offer to accept questions and encouraging questions. We really appreciate that. This question is not meant to sway anybody one way or another.
I'm just curious to know, is there anything else that you can think of that we could do aside from an absolute repeal of the statute of limitations? I think for as long as laws existed, we've always just had murder as the only offense where there is no statute of limitations. I think we changed that to include rape when DNA evidence is available a few years back. And this seems like a compelling thing to do now, and I'm inclined to support it. But I'm just curious to know, did you all consider, and this is for the bill's sponsors or anyone else,
consider anything else like maybe extending the statute of limitations another 10 years or another 20
Speaker 68
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years or anything else other than an outright repeal? Yes, sir, I can answer that. Yes, sir, we thought about this in detail, to be honest with you. And I even went as far to talk to a female who had been abused as a child also. And her statement to me was that, and I remembered it explicitly, she said,
well, you know, just because of somebody's age, that doesn't stop them from doing this. We don't know how long that this could go. And there's also other ways, you know, I don't guess there's any children in the room, you know, other than physical penetration, you know, that this type of abuse can happen. So, yes, sir, I'll be honest, we thought about it in detail and tried to cover it, and this is why we
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presented the bill this way. I think that's
a good reason. You're telling us basically it's because these types of offenders are generally more likely
than not to offend again throughout their lifetimes.
Speaker 37
41:39
That is what this evidence would have brought forward, yes, sir. I
would agree with that. In fact, if I might, Mr. Chairman, I've actually prosecuted one of these cases with someone that
didn't come forward until late in college, and the offense was conducted, I think, 10 or 12 years before. They're difficult cases to prosecute, so I understand why I think the prosecutors are neutral in this case, because we want to be able to prosecute them. We want
to have evidence to prosecute them, and it's just a very difficult thing. But I think that your reasoning makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate it.
Thank you, sir. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you We're going to follow
just as a point of order Those fiscal impacts Have been uploaded to your Tablets You can take a look at those that way we don't have to circulate But they are available for Your perusal and with that we're going
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
42:31
to go back To Representative Gillum for a follow up Thank you Mr.
Chair Senator just From my knowledge and Some of the technicalities of the current law Is it true that You have until age 28
to come forward under current statute right now? Yes, sir. That is correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chair, maybe one follow-up? Yes, sir. Okay. And when you were looking at this, did you look at or study any of the effects on memory that time has when you were considering this as far as any of the data on that and how it would impact future cases, memory, witness testimony, I know there's a tremendous amount of data out there from the criminal side of things
on how memory deteriorates, you know, in specific details, things like that. I was just curious as to how if you looked at any of that when you were looking
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did not. Okay. Thank you. Representative Gilliam, if I may, one of our witnesses. Yes. That's fine. Yes, sir. I actually did look into that issue in my own research. We discovered apparently the trend in not only removing statutes of limitations, it's also giving credibility to the victim's memory, his or her ability, to recall the specific instances.
And actually, in August of 2012, the American Bar Association adopted a resolution requesting statute of limitations reform for sexual assault of minors. And they referenced that specific thing that although the evidence can be dated, it's no less as effective
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and accurate in the studies they've seen. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right.
Any other questions from the committee? Mr.
Representative Walker, you're recognized. Thank you,
Mr. Chair. It seems as if there are other statute of limitations concerns that could be possibly addressed as you approach this. One of them would be an extension of the civil action statute of limitations so that if deterrence
of future actions as well as punishment
are your considerations. Extending the statute of limitations to more than three years for filing a
civil action after one becomes of majority would have some significant effect. At least it would have a deterrent effect, and it would also allow a person to get some benefit other than the satisfaction of knowing that his offender is in jail or is being prosecuted.
As we look at some of the national and international offenses, we find that often persons who engage in this kind of activity are persons in high places who are well resourced. So what would be your attitude about having this bill or some other corollary bill address That's the issue of extending the statute of limitations for civil action. MR. Thank you, Representative Walker.
Speaker 66
46:00
Of course, this particular bill, the way we have it, as you would know more as much
as anybody here, deals solely with the criminal aspect of this. I would be more than happy to work with you or anybody else at this table if we would like to look at amending, you know, civil liabilities as it relates to these sexual crimes. You know, if there's another type of bill that we could do, of course, like I said, this bill solely deals with the criminal aspect is what we were going after,
the benefits of a civil action is that you're able to engage in discovery with the offender so that the person, of course, would always have her Fifth Amendment privilege to assert.
But in the absence of a criminal case, it would be unlikely that he could assert that. In a civil case, where any question is fair game and you do not have to have a 12-0 unanimous jury verdict for the outcome that you want. And in the final analysis, the penalty will be substantially the same. will be embarrassed and effectively put out of commission for the future for all practical
purposes. And in addition to that, I understand that you all are fairly well-to-do, you've said that, but for those persons who are not quite equally situated, they would be able to get some kind of economic retribution for the experiences they sustained. Were you asking me a question,
ought to be rolled into one, some kind of way to give you, and either are?
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Well, to be honest with you, in my opinion, and I appreciate the committee that we have to be detailed in all this, but as
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far as this bill, and there's not an emergency clause in there, but I'm going to be honest with you, there is an emergency because from my standpoint I want everybody to just think just think with me just for a second a lot of times if we would take this bill and say well if we held up on this bill for a few days what this might do is allow a perpetrator to be on the street for one more day or two more days
if it's two days before this goes into law actually that won't be that could not be the case here because if there is an if there is an individual out there that is 27 years, 364 days old, and if this bill is in law, they could come forward. If they waited two more days, then at that point, they could not come forward in a prosecution and be brought against a known perpetrator that's out there in our society that could be molesting our children.
So, like I said, I guess from the beginning, I'd be more than happy to look at other legislation But I want this bill, if possible, with the committee that we go forward.
Thank you, sir. Building up our committee questions here, but I'm going to go to Representative Scott, then Wagner, and I think Representative
Representative Sue Scott
Unverified
49:29
Bounder. Mr. Vice Chairman, I would like a motion at the proper time.
Absolutely. Thank you, Representative. Representative Wagner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question
is directed at, I guess, anyone that can answer it. And it follows along some of the lines of Representative Walker on the, even the civil aspect that would, I think, it would be beneficial to look at because I'm worried about our burden of proof and the whatever evidence there might be
deteriorating and the burden is less in a civil suit and then on the criminal side, I'm just wondering if along the same lines as Representative Steele, there could be something looked into, like if you have
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new DNA evidence for rape, it can be brought back up and I think I heard the gentleman say the perpetrator, he confessed in these situations So is there something, if you had a confession, it could always be brought back up?
Speaker 117
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I'd just like to hear your thoughts on
Speaker 70
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that. Matt Smith will address that if you want to, Matt. Sure. I understand the argument or the issue of putting additional restrictions on the removal of the statute of limitations. It's our position. I can speak for my brother and I, Senator Hickey and Representative Hickerson. that we have a system in place currently that protects the accused.
They have numerous rights. None of those rights are disparaged because of this bill. However, I'd like to point out that keeping an entire class of victims from getting justice This is no less efficient or fair than, you know, maintaining the civil liberties of the accused. I personally, with my story, and it's important to note that you don't go from an accusation to a prosecution.
I believe there's many attorneys on this committee. I think you'll agree. I sat through, I believe, three interrogations, countless phone calls, ended up having, after months, ended up having to go up to Fort Smith and testify in front of a grand jury before we could ever get something filed against this man. Had the evidence not been there, then we wouldn't have gotten to that point. He wouldn't be sitting in jail. And I'm a firm believer in that, obviously.
But not every accusation leads to a prosecution. And so while putting more stipulations in DNA or if a confession or more evidence is brought forward, then this kicks in. My concern with that is there's a whole range of times when that won't be the case, and you do have a prosecutable case. And our example is we have our case as an example. So I would think that while, yes, DNA certainly helps, confessions certainly help,
you're running a risk of leaving out a whole class of victims that we're trying
to protect. Follow-up, Mr. Chair? Yes, absolutely. You referenced, I think it was the American Bar Association had some recommendations, but I didn't hear you. Was there any specific recommendation out of that organization? And then part two is what are some other states around this?
Speaker 142
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What was their conclusion on the statute
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of limitations deal? The American Bar Association simply asked the state legislature. Part of the resolution was that state legislatures review statute of limitations reform. They didn't give any specific suggestions in detailing it. They did outline some of the things that other states are doing. And like I mentioned, 17 have completely done away with it, several of them recently.
Our border states, I believe it's Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, and I'm not sure, I think Missouri, all of which have done away with the statute of limitations. Yes, sir, Cindy. Sir, I apologize. That was on
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the back of that impact statement. Okay. So whoever took that has my copy. Okay. Well, I think we've
got them on the tablets also, so I think it should be both sides. If I can make a
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comment from a victim standpoint on extending the statute of limitations.
You know, 28 is the current. That's 10 years after 18. The states that have extended it, I think most of them, again, I'm not an attorney, have extended that to 38, essentially adding 10 years. from you know i understand from a legal standpoint a burden of proof and more difficult to defend versus more difficult to prosecute but from a victim standpoint adding 10 years is not going to do a whole lot the people that do these things the rich roberts of the world they don't stop doing it okay they're not they're not a 22 year old kid that broke into an easy mark because he
He didn't have any money, and he's still doing that at 52. These are people that think abnormally. They're very different in the way they think. They don't stop because they get scared. They may stop for a while, but they don't stop. They don't stop because somebody goes and talks to them about it. They need intense counseling for any hope of stopping. and the situation we have you know in my situation where I was six years after
the statute well I'm six years out the statute I can go back and find several 25 year old young men who were abused that are still in statute but they're not ready to talk about it and they may not be ready until they're 39 and again puts them out of that window and so even though we have ironclad proof of what he's doing he's still doing what he's doing because of the statute So from a victim standpoint and from a perpetrator standpoint, if these people don't stop, adding 10 years or adding 15 years, my honest opinion wouldn't make much of a difference.
You know, you would catch some people that are ready to come forward in that 10-year window, but the plain and simple fact is these people are going to do this as long as they have opportunity until they die. And so, you know, I understand the legal standpoint, but from a victim-perpetrator standpoint, the only way to stop these people from doing it is to put them in jail. You can sue them all you want to. They're going to keep doing it if they have the opportunity. The only way to stop is to put them in jail whenever those victims are available and can do it from just an internal standpoint.
Representative Mary P. "Prissy" Hickerson
Unverified
56:47
Representative Hickerson, I think you had a follow-up. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. I just wanted to expand on that just a little bit because you all asked about states, about raising, just simply raising the age. In Massachusetts, if you go back and do some research on the state of Massachusetts, they did extend their statute of limitations over some years, several times, before they finally just did away with it because these cases kept coming up. prosecutable cases beyond statute of limitations so and that was just a couple years ago i think
that they passed that they're one of the states that now have no statute of limitations on sex crimes against minors so just want
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
57:40
represent representative ballinger thank you mr speaker um i'm intrigued by the idea of doing this with With civil law, I think that all the reasoning would probably fall into the same category. One of the things that I have a couple of questions. One, with civil law, all the attorneys on here understand the idea that some people are judgment-proof who have no assets to execute against.
So, therefore, there would be some situations where there would be no financial benefit for civil litigation. I guess that would be correct. The other thing I'd have a question about is would this satisfy the need? need, if we decided to just do it civilly, would it satisfy the need of putting somebody on a sexual offender registry so that if somebody were sure in their Texarkana, they wouldn't be able to do it again, but would there be anything that would limit them from relocating to my mom's neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or relocating to some other place where nobody
has any clue about it, to my district in Northwest Arkansas, that would be, that anybody there may not know about it. Would that
Speaker 70
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be correct? i'm not a criminal lawyer so forgive me if it's not 100 accurate but it's my understanding that there are basically two levels of the list you're referring to one deals with child endangerment that does not require a criminal prosecution i don't know what the standard is i think a committee votes on it and it's by preponderance of the evidence if they determine
that a person is, you know, a threat to children for a number of reasons, not just sexual abuse, they can be put on that list. Now, that list is well below the sex offender registry. There's no requirement for neighborhood notification. There's no registration as far as moving around the state or to other states. And quite frankly, the only way you would find out about it is if you ran a criminal record of someone or you were actually investigating It's my understanding that the sexual offender registration list can only occur with the prosecution.
Speaker 155
59:44
Forgive me if I'm in that's not accurate, but that's my
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
59:54
understanding of it. Yes, sir. Representative Gillum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to backtrack for a second to one of my earlier questions about the memory. And would you mind reading what you said you had from the bar again? Because after you said that, I was kind of going back and remembering in some of the scientific journals and stuff over the last two or three years, it seems inconsistent with what the science that's being done and conducted on memory.
Speaker 123
1:00:21
So would you mind reading that one more time? If you'll give me a second to find it, it's a few pages long here. Is that the same one?
Speaker 70
1:01:01
I believe I have the right paragraph here. I apologize if I don't. Okay. In the section entitled Obstacles to Effective Application of Statute of Limitations and Crimes Against Children, they have a paragraph that states the general view is that in the interest of justice
a prosecution should be based on recent and more reliable evidence however due to the reporting difficulties unique and inherent in child sexual abuse cases it is also in the interest of justice to reform statutes and limitations in these special cases. Concerns regarding the age and reliability of evidence in such cases can be addressed sufficiently via other safeguards currently in place in criminal justice system. Chiefly, there are evidentiary rules are already on the books to provide for review of evidence that may be unreliable due to the passage of time.
And I'd like to add on to that. There was a study done by the FBI and Department of Justice from 1990 to 2000 nationwide, and And they came back, they investigated all ages who were reporting sexual crimes against them from children all the way up to, I think, I don't have the study in front of me, but I think it was 65. And they found that of people that came to authorities, only 1% to 4% were fabricated
or not true, basically. Now those all didn't lead to prosecution, because like you detailed, sometimes the evidence It just isn't there, but the likelihood of a faded memory or, you know, a wrong flag accusation or something like that, there's DOJ-FBI study, and, of course, the Bar Association is asking
Speaker 155
1:02:55
that, you know, this issue should be addressed. I am familiar with that DOJ
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
1:03:00
study, and I reviewed that in great length, so I'm glad you referenced that. I guess one of the
things that keyed in my mind there when you were going over the other states and extending to 38,
I'm not sure, but I think part of the reason they may have done that was because of some of the food science studies and things that have come out saying that 40 is a threshold in neuroscience that the memory starts to just your neural receptors and things begin to fade a little bit. And so I'm wondering if that's why they went to 38 on that, because I've read some of those in some of the journals here lately regarding
research on blueberries and things like that as to why that may have been the effect.
Speaker 70
1:03:48
brain part, but I would like to point out that six states have extended it well beyond 40 years old and even to 50. But I'll let him talk about
Speaker 76
1:04:04
the neuro part. In regards to neuroscience and memory and age, Obviously, it's a
Speaker 77
1:04:10
very wide range of memory, other things taken into consideration.
However, there is obvious evidence that new memory formation somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 becomes affected. However, long-term memory does not seem to be as effective. And just to generalize it, you know, those folks in here who have an Alzheimer's family member or someone with a significant short-term memory disability, you can ask that person about fishing trips 30 years ago and they'll tell you how many you caught. And that goes along the same lines.
It's long-term memory and short – and the maintaining memory and developing memory are two totally different things. And I would agree that after 40, you know, developing new memories as efficiently as we did at 15 does not happen, but there's very few strong memories as a child, even a patient with Alzheimer's, is going to remember those things, you know, into their 80s. Mr. Chair, one last follow-up,
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
1:05:11
and then I promise I'll yield. I will not ask any future questions. Proceed.
Senator, you mentioned something a little while ago in talking about the necessity, of course, time-wise on this. One of the things that I guess I'm in view of the testimony today that maybe I'm thinking about now is it seems to be that there's still going to be a large gap, potentially, if we're waiting 10, 20 years for people to have the courage that these two gentlemen have had to come through. I'm just wondering if maybe we shouldn't be focusing more on victim empowerment for minors in order to speed this process of getting these individuals off the street.
I'm just concerned that this might not really have the desired effect in the time lapse that may be necessary for the victims to come to terms and be able to step forward. Well, yes,
Speaker 68
1:06:10
sir. I guess what I would have to say is not in place of but in addition to. I would agree that we need to be going forward because you are correct. The problem, and I don't know when this law was written with the statute of limitations in,
and I don't throw any rocks as to why that was put in there, but that was a glitch in our law, and you're correct. because, as it could be, I mean, it could be 14, 15 years or however long that would work out before somebody could be prosecuted because of this because we cannot back up from anything that's happened now. So I guess my comment to that would be a simple comment is it's never too late to do the right thing and that we need to look out into the future to make sure that this is corrected.
Thank you, Senator. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Representative Gillum.
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:07:14
I think Representative Shepard had a had a question Thank you Mr. Chairman thank you for your testimony today two questions one there's been some discussion of civil liability but I would assume the motivating interest here is
money is, in some circumstances, it's inconsequential that there is value to society and to the victim to have perpetrators of these horrible acts punished by society. And I'm assuming that that's one of the motivations in focusing on this criminal statute of limitations. Yes, sir, it
Speaker 123
1:07:54
is. I actually signed an affidavit stating that I would
Speaker 70
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not pursuing monetary judgment against Richard Roberts during the federal prosecution and the reason I did so was to remove any cloud as to why I was coming forward and I would agree that it is it's vital to not only victims but the public at large that these predators are punished for what they did for me personally and the reason I wanted this bill to go into place and the reason I went and talked to the authorities was not so much that I would get some vindication.
I certainly don't mind that Richard Roberts is in jail. I'm glad he's there. That's not the driving force. The driving force is when I heard he was coaching baseball again. I mean, it just hammers home the habitual nature of these offenders, and finally something inside of me snapped, and I realized that there's absolutely no way I can sit on the sideline and let one more child be abused. And quite frankly, I know we're discussing things, civil liability and extending the statute.
My point earlier, it remains the same, that if one kid is abused by one of these people, not you as a legislature, but us as Arkansans have failed because the most important thing we can do in a state, country, world is protect our children, and I believe we have the ability to do that with this bill. Thank you
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:09:32
for your comment. And then my
second question, and I guess I'm just looking for confirmation possibly from the bill sponsors.
Clearly, in the facts that you all have outlined, you had numerous people who have stepped forward. You had a confession, as I understand it. Is that correct? And obviously, I mean, there was certainly a tremendous weight of evidence there. And I guess from a legal standpoint and looking at the history of statute and limitations, there is some concern for the civil liberties of the accused, but also the veracity of being able to put forth a presentable case.
But I think one of the things that speaks largely in this circumstance is my understanding that the prosecutors are neutral on this, and as I see it, it gives them an opportunity to utilize their discretion and that ultimately if there's information presented that they feel is not of sufficient value to move forward, they still have the ability to do further investigation, one, or to close the file, not pursue that.
And so I guess I'm looking for confirmation. That's my understanding. Prosecutors are neutral on this. I think it gives them one more tool available to them to see that justice is actually
brought to bear against perpetrators of these horrible acts. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And I'm
Speaker 68
1:11:12
as Miller County goes. Our prosecutor in Miller County has come forward and said that, you know, that he is in favor of removing this statute of limitations.
As far as the Prosecutors Association, I think Ms. Hickerson has
Representative Mary P. "Prissy" Hickerson
Unverified
1:11:28
talked to them. Yes, I have. Thank you for your question, Representative Shepard. Bob McMahon is actually here. He's the Prosecuting Attorney Coordinator. and he has confirmed that they have no objections at all to this bill because of the removal of statute of limitations. So if anyone needs to talk to him, he's not on the witness list, but thank you.
Speaker 93
1:11:54
Mr. McMahon, do you have anything you want to
add to that? Okay. Being judiciary, I didn't want to have any hearsay problems, so I just want to make sure. Anything, any other questions from a committee or the, I don't believe we've got anybody else signed up from the audience to speak for or against. If they're seeing or hearing none, I'm going to go back to Representative Scott for a motion.
Representative Sue Scott
Unverified
1:12:25
Motion, thank you. Motion do pass. Okay, the motion
has been made on the Senate bill to do pass Senate Bill 92. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Congratulations, Senator Hickey, Representative Hickerson. Your bill is passed. Thank you. We wish to thank the committee.
Chair
Unverified
1:12:56
Thank you all. I'm going to go to Representative Dale, who's been in Dale and in Davis. Representative Dale, I believe you have
a couple of bills. I'm going to come after him. Representative Davis, if you can hang out for just a minute, we're going to get Representative Dale, and then we'll grab you next. Representative Dale, proceed.
Representative Dale, I believe you have two bills. Are you prepared with both of those? I sure would like to, yes. Okay, we'll have, I assumed, House Bill 1257 first. That would be great. Okay, and then we'll proceed to 1258. And if you will, we all know you, but you may want to introduce yourself for the record and also your guest.
Robert Dale
Unverified
1:14:00
Okay. My name is Robert Dale. I'm a
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
1:14:05
state representative, and I have with me Mr. Dan McDonnell. He is director of the Child Support Division of DHS. DFA. DFA, I'm sorry. um what a result of uh my inquiry is inquiries with him caused these bills to be uh written up and presented uh i was asking him about what are some things we can do to get the child support
into the hands of the children that are not getting it now. And so they can have their educations and their clothing and everything that they need as they grow up. And so he brought me these two bills and he said he thought that these would help some. And mainly we're talking
Robert Dale
Unverified
1:15:04
about arrears, people that are in arrears on their child support here.
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
1:15:12
There's other names for that. I'm not going into it. But the first one talks about the House Bill 1257, talks about that when a child reaches the age of majority, then no other child support is to be paid. But our law is not very clear about all the arrears that may have built up.
So what we propose here is that even though the child may have reached majority that the person would still owe all of the arrears that he has built up over the term of the when the child was less than the majority. So I'll take questions, and we'll get Mr. McDonald to help us here. All right.
Mr. McDonald, welcome to House Judiciary.
Speaker 191
1:16:16
You're recognized. Yes. Good morning, Mr. I guess it's still morning, Mr. Chair and members. Appreciate
Speaker 192
1:16:28
your consideration in this bill. And basically what this does, it will put the same treatment on cases where when arrears are owed, past due support is owed. Right now, if all the children emancipate out of the case, the law treats arrears in
the way that the payment that is being made at that point through wage assignment or whatever remains the same amount until all the arrears are paid off. What we have is some inconsistencies with our courts in treatment of cases where one child will emancipate and there are still children in the home. Some courts will reduce the amount that is being paid by the noncustodial parent because there is one less child in the house. But it is our contention that since these past due arrears should have been paid when
all the children were in the house, that it should remain at the same level of payment until those arrears are paid off. Now, the amount of the obligation or the current amount will reduce to the non-custodial parent by operational law. For example, if there's four children in the house, there's $100 ordered. that one child emancipate, the obligation amount, obligated amount, will go down to $75, but if he's been paying $150, instead of going down to $75, we'd like it to remain
at $150 until he's paid his arrears down, since they should have paid those. I say he, but we have some non-custodial mothers as well, until they pay down on that amount, And then it would automatically adjust down to the obligated amount based on the current obligation. All right. I'd be happy to take
any questions. MR. Very well. I was going to ask, Representative McDonnell, will you
be willing to take questions?
MR. Absolutely. MR. I think Representative Steele has a
question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. McDonald. I'm looking at Section B here, which is all stricken now under this amendment. I'm having a hard time really telling what that is. What's the effect of striking out Section B, and how does it – if I'm looking at the right bill, this is 1257, correct? Yes. We've got one full Section A. There are some minor changes there.
It don't seem to have any real effect, just clarification. Section B is entirely stricken. I'm just trying to figure out exactly how that accomplishes what –
Speaker 192
1:19:09
Let me call my expert to the table. This is Barbara Morris-Williams. She's our field operations manager. She is also an attorney, and she can speak to that a lot more clearly than I can. Thank you. Is
that okay? Yes, ma'am. Welcome to House Judiciary.
Speaker 197
1:19:26
You're recognized. Thank you. The way that the statute is structured now, Section 8 applies to the situation in which
Speaker 198
1:19:32
all of the children have emancipated out and there's arrears. It directs that the noncustodial parent continue paying whatever he was ordered to pay before ordered to pay before until they're paid off. Section B addressed only those cases in which the order was set out so that it was per child, that in the example, $100 per week for four children would be expressed as $25 per week per child. The statute did not address what
to do with that order that was $100 per week flat. So we're trying to eliminate, by eliminating Section B and the changes in Section A, we believe that that will address all families in all orders. Okay. Thank you. And one more question I forgot about, Mr. Chair.
Speaker 201
1:20:18
Just a minute. Just for the record, could you identify yourself? We
didn't catch the full name up here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm Barbara Morris-Williams. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Williams. I
Speaker 206
1:20:29
apologize. Proceed, Representative Steele. Just one more question, if I could.
There's a fiscal impact here, and I can't open it because we can't figure out how to work these tablets. But I'm wondering why there would be any fiscal impact. This money should be flowing to the parents, to the custodial parent. That's correct. Is it the
Speaker 192
1:20:49
drain on OCSE resources or something like that? No, sir. Our response to that was no fiscal impact at all. And you're right. All this money is passed through to family. So it will benefit the family while children are still in the home,
and it also will benefit the non-custodial parent as they will pay down their debt quicker to the families that they owe. And this will affect
in all child support cases, not just child support enforcement cases, correct? That's correct. Thank you. Nothing
further, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative Steele, and those concerns will be passed down to our house management. Any
other questions from the committee? Representative Wagner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sounds like you've addressed the per-child figures on adjusting child support,
but clarify for me, does the payment for arrears, is it set in stone, or if, say, an individual gets a different job where his income is either more or less, are you all going to come back and try to raise the child support to pay off the arrears if he's making more income or vice versa? Will it be treated just like child supports, or is the figure set in stone on a percentage basis or per-child basis? You can probably answer it better.
Speaker 198
1:22:09
The percentage is established under statute at 20 percent of the whatever the ongoing obligation is. And under this, we would not be deviating from that or changing it. If the court order was the noncustodial parent was to pay $100 per week and we had, or just under statute, withholding an additional 20 percent, or if the order stated a specific amount to be applied to arrears, we would continue with that until there was another order entered. We would not change that.
Speaker 192
1:22:40
I would say that if there's a current obligation and there's a modification or a review by the court that wants to review the current part of that, that could change based on that court's review, but it would still be either a set amount established by the court, or and the court could establish a larger amount based on more income, or it would still remain at the percentage by statute. Representative Feit.
Representative Charlene Fite
Unverified
1:23:13
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When the child reaches the age of majority, to whom would the money go? Would it go to the custodial parent or would it go to that emancipated child? It always goes to the parent.
Speaker 192
1:23:24
We have a lot of children that will come to us and say, you know, my mom didn't collect all the or my dad didn't collect all the money when I was in the home. Can I get that now? But the order is to be paid to the custodial parent for the life of the debt, always. Thank you. All right.
Any further questions from the committee?
Motion at a proper time. Representative Broadway, you're
Representative Mary Broadaway
Unverified
1:23:56
recognized. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In cases where the child support unit is involved, I'm aware of the fact that when a party can go in and ask for a review and adjustment after a particular period of time, either one, when all the children are emancipated, is that still available to them under this statute?
Speaker 192
1:24:16
Does this change that? No, ma'am. Modification is only for current support, and it only can occur while children are in the – she's looking at me strangely. When I start saying only
Speaker 198
1:24:34
– okay. If you'll read in the Act, further on down in Section A, it does specify that there can be an amount to be determined by the court based on application of the income to the chart. So I believe that it contemplates that even after the children emancipate, upon proper motion, the court could review the circumstances and adjust the amount that was paid to the arrears.
Representative Mary Broadaway
Unverified
1:24:57
But that could be done through the Child Support Enforcement Unit, or would the individual have to seek relief on their own? It could be
either. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I apologize, Representative Wagner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If someone takes advantage of child support enforcement, I assume they're still going
to take their percentage even out of the arrears that's owed if they collect it like they do, whether it's just regular child support under the age of 18? You're
Speaker 192
1:25:45
talking about like a fee? Yeah, the child support enforcement fee. Yes, sir. It's not a percentage. It's actually a set amount. It can be a percentage up to a certain amount, yes, as far as that charge to the custodial parent.
And then we also have fees that are also charged to the non-custodial parent. Now, we only charge the fees in the case where someone applies for services. They're not on public assistance, Medicaid, our kids first. T, if they're on those then we provide those services for free. Representative Steele, did you
have a question? Committee, anybody else have a question? What's the pleasure of the committee?
Move, do pass. Got a motion, do pass. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Ayes
have it. Congratulations, you pass your bill. Representative Dale, you're recognized
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
1:26:50
to present House Bill 1258. House Bill 1258 is going to discuss a little bit of what we talked there, but it's only changing one thing.
It's changing the penalty for arrears from 20% to 25%. In other words, we're trying to get the guy that's paying it to speed up his payment and get the arrears caught up first because, I mean, it's going for the kids, and they need it right then. So we'll take any questions. It's not very much a
Speaker 237
1:27:24
. . . Representative Steele, you recognize your question?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know you all are getting sick
of hearing the sound of my voice, but this one I'm particularly concerned about, because I think in some parts of the state, we have what is, everybody wants to make sure
that somebody raising a child gets the child support they're entitled to, but this doesn't deal with support. This deals with, you know, an additional fee, and I think in some parts of the state, we have what is basically turned out to be a debtor's prison, and we have people that just cannot pay. They're trying to pay. We're adding fees on them. They
can't pay the fees. They get behind, and then county judges have to put them in jail and pay the cost of keeping them there, and they're not getting any
reimbursement from the state for that. So that seems to already
Speaker 192
1:28:16
be a problem. Would this not just exacerbate that problem? Well, this is actually not a fee. This is actually a collection of child support that should have been paid on time, but it has not been paid on time. This is, for example, if what this does currently, if $100 is owed per month, it adds $20, 20
percent to the collection amount, which would be $120, to pay off past due support. This bill would raise that, if past due support is owed, to $125 payable. So it's a minimal amount, but it will help pay off the arrears a little bit quicker. We did a survey of states – yeah, it's not fees, it's child support. We did a survey of states, and the median average is about 25 percent, and that's what I brought back to Representative Dale to say that to bring Arkansas in line with the median
of collection around the country, 25 percent would be a good number. It's not too much. It's not
too less. So if they pay $100 and rather than $20 going to the arrears and the other 80 going to the current child support, this would make 25 go to
Speaker 192
1:29:27
the arrears and the other 75 go to child support? Now, if they paid $100, if their obligation is $100, $100 would go to the current obligation, but we would add on, according to statute, $20, and in this instance, we're asking for $25 to speed up the recovery process.
We have a lot of cases that will pay for 18, 25, 30 years after the fact. All the kids are grown, and they're still making payments to the family that is no longer really a family because they've amassed so many arrears. That's what we find out in enforcement. Again, these are cases that are delinquent. They've been negligent in following the court's order, and we're just trying to get them
Speaker 223
1:30:11
to pay the money back. Pardon my ignorance, but
I'm still trying to determine whether or not this payor is paying any more money under this bill than it already was.
I mean, are we just talking about the percentage going where the money goes as to arreage and current support, or is it
Speaker 192
1:30:29
actually more money? It's actually more money. Instead of $120, it would be $125. And this would only apply to new cases going forward or modified cases that come up. It wouldn't retroactively refit to those cases that are involved right now. You think the timing might be better
sometime when the economy might be doing a little bit better and people could already afford to pay their child support? It seems like right now increasing any fee on anybody seems a little bit.
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
1:30:56
Well, you know, those children getting that money, the timing could be really important right now for them to get their money. So that kind of has two ends to that rope. But we're not talking about
the actual child support they owe. We're talking about additional money, fees. So more than just what the child
Speaker 244
1:31:15
support is. That $25 is going to the child, or
Representative Jim Nickels
Unverified
1:31:18
that extra $5 is. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And
Speaker 192
1:31:25
if I may clarify, that's money that the non-custodial parent owes under the court order.
It's child support that is owed. It's not an additional fee. It's just speeding up the payment of what they should have paid under the order, but they got behind
Speaker 248
1:31:44
in. Representative Cazay, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. McDonald, just so that I understand, can you walk through this with me real quick? If the noncustodial parent is obligated to pay $100 a week and does not pay for five weeks, then they have an arrearage of $500. Are you saying that this proposal would then take $25 bites out of that $500 arrearage until it is satisfied?
That's correct. Under the wording of your bill, it also seems to indicate that not less than. Does that mean that in the discretion of the court, the court could hold somebody in jail until they came up with that
Speaker 192
1:32:26
entire $500? I guess the court could do anything, but the court does have discretion to order less administratively from our viewpoint. When administratively, what we do, unless it's included in the order, a set amount, which may be less than 20 percent or more than 20, less than 25 or more than 25, if it's set by the court, a specific amount, we always would apply the statutory 20 percent or, in this case, 25 percent.
Speaker 248
1:33:00
Absolutely, Representative Kese. But OCSE employs a series of attorneys working for them, don't they? That's correct, sir. And you mentioned earlier that you've got people with arrears just 20 and
Speaker 192
1:33:14
30 years old. Yes, sir. Why aren't you pursuing them for contempt? We do, if they're not paying. Again, the statute sets up a payment plan for arrears. But when they fail to pay what's currently obligated,
and they fail to, under the statute, pay back at this limit, then we do several contemps, thousands and thousands of contemps. But are you actually taking them
Speaker 248
1:33:39
to trial, or are you reaching negotiated agreements with these debtors on what they will pay
Speaker 192
1:33:46
you? Yes. Our job is, first of all, to get current support coming in the home and then collect careers. We do whatever is necessary to make that happen, either through, you know, there's already an order in place,
but we have all kinds of tools and remedies from license and suspension to seasoned bank accounts to seasoned tax returns, passport denial, all the things that we go through administratively to try to collect that. And one of the administrative things that we do is issue a wage assignment to employers That includes not only the current amount, but what has been ordered either by the court to collect arrears or apply the percentage to collect arrears.
If all of that fails, then the court is the answer,
Speaker 248
1:34:40
and they stand before the judge. Can I have one more follow-up, Mr. Chair? Yes. Is it fair to say that OCSE has greater resources available to them than the custodial parent would have by hiring private counsel? Yes, sir. Very much so. And the bill you're proposing here is simply permissive in nature. The court can increase to pay the arrears whatever they wanted.
Yes, sir. And so are you telling me that you've still got people with 20-year-old debt that you can't collect with all
Speaker 192
1:35:27
the resources available to OCSE? We can collect on it, but getting, for example, if $100,000 is owed, the likelihood of us getting $100,000 from someone at one lump sum is unlikely because the resources are
not there for that individual. So if they, you know, the way it's set up is that we collect a little bit over time. Now, most of our cases are not $100,000 behind, but there are some that reach into the $8,000 to $10,000 to $15,000. When they fail to pay at that level, then it becomes a matter of criminal, a criminal matter that can be referred to the prosecuting attorney, and they can determine whether or not to bring felony charges for someone that owes a certain amount and has failed to pay
child support. And we do that. cases to the prosecuting attorney for that purpose. I hope I'm answering
Speaker 259
1:36:22
your question. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative
Wagner, you recognize your question? Thank you, Mr. Chair. The concern I have, you know, your previous bill just dealt with arrearages after the age of majority. My understanding of this bill deals with any arrearages when the child is under the age of 18, so it is in addition to the regular child support payment.
I understand child support arrearage, you know, it is child
support, should be old, but it just seems like the additional fee, I know in examples
I have, people in fixed income, even though it's 5%, it makes a difference, and it just seems like it's going to get somebody
in the never-ending circle of staying in arrears instead of satisfying the arrears debt.
I just wanted you to speak to that and just see how much faster you think
Speaker 192
1:37:29
it's going to pay it off. To me, it's a minimal amount. Again, we looked at other states and looked at the averages and thought, you know, if we can collect a little bit more based on the averages across most of the states. Now, I found some states where this percentage is 50 percent. I found some states where it was 10 percent, but most of them, if you took them all together, fell in about the 25 percent range.
Again, you know, it's based on the ability to pay, based on the court's order according to the chart. For a $100 payer, that's going to increase it to $5. That's five more dollars that the family will have that month. $1,000 payer, that's going to increase that to $50. So, you know, it's dependent on their ability to pay and what the court has said. We felt like this would not run up against
the noncustodial parent's ability to pay a little bit more to get that debt paid. So So that's why we limited it to 25 percent and didn't go higher than that. Representative Broadway, you
Representative Mary Broadaway
Unverified
1:38:47
recognize your question? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I commend what you do, and I have worked in child support collection.
And I recognize the fact that we think that perhaps moving it from 20 to 25 percent is fairly minimal.
But my concern is that there are many individuals. We live in a poor state. I live in a poor town, and there are many people who have multiple obligations. And when we raise this, even $5, if we're paying one parent, we have a person who is behind in his obligation to one former spouse or for one child, but he has or she has multiple obligations. maybe they have three different obligations to three different mothers or fathers or whatever.
That is not inconsequential, and we set these people up to, I guess, get into a contempt situation or not have the ability to meet what they do. So I do have concerns, although it's very well-intentioned, and it seemingly could be a very small amount of money. It could have a significant financial impact on individuals, and I'm not convinced that this is in the best interest right now. Representative Shepard, you're recognized.
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:40:07
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One question, and maybe this was covered in the previous bill since I had to step out. The provisions that you're proposing to amend relate to 9-14-221 B-3B, which covers this appears to only deal with the notice requirement. And I'm just
wondering, is there not, this seems to only address the notice,
but is there not an underlying substantive provision that actually provides for the percentage in the first place? And I guess specifically, is 218 the provision that actually, 218 provides for the 20%? And I just have a technical question about whether even if we do this, is there going to be some inconsistency between what the substantive law is
Speaker 192
1:41:13
and what the notice provision is? That's a good question, and I'm not sure that we're prepared to
Speaker 175
1:41:24
answer that without having a 2.18 before us. Well, I've got a
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:41:29
copy of it right here, but I guess 2.21 clearly is just notice.
Speaker 213
1:41:36
Is that not right? Yeah, yeah. If you could look at that particular loss, she may be able to answer that.
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
1:41:45
I apologize that we're not prepared to answer that. Representative Dale, do you recognize? I know that you've got an interest here in time.
Do you want us to pull this down maybe? I'd prefer that. Then I'd make a motion that we pull this bill down, and we'll look up all this stuff. We can just
pull it down if you want to do that. No motion needed, but we can do that. Thank you for respecting the time we've got to deal with.
Speaker 267
1:42:16
Thank you, Representative Dale. Yeah. Representative Davis, I'm going to do you next.
Representative Davis, thank you for your patience. You recognize and present Senate Bill 131.
Thank you, Chairman. It's not up on this tablet, so I'm going to try to do this by memory. It's a pretty straightforward bill. Committee members, this is Senator Bruce Holland's bill that intended to protect the privacy of Arkansas citizens who hold permits for concealed carry. This bill would eliminate concealed carry permit holders' names and zip codes from being available through FOI. I'd be happy to take any questions. it's Senate bill 131 representative Walker
you're recognized for question thank you mr.
chair well could you explain to me what the purpose of this is what is it you're trying to to
accomplish we are simply trying to uh... protect the name and zip code which together could be used uh... to from the physical location of somebody who has it this type of license this information could be used in targeting individuals who own valuable firearms about the use
or for other Well, let me
ask, if a person has a handgun, apparently
this act presumes that that person's identity is disclosed and its address is also disclosed to some governmental body, doesn't it? Yes, the information is still available
it's available to a governmental body that's responsible.
Now, is there any way
that you have for ascertaining the veracity of a person's
address or other information upon its application to carry a handgun? For an application to
carry a handgun? Let's assume
that I come in and I give Jeremy Gilliam's address as my address for a handgun, and then it's there forever, and then I'm on a voter registration list at a different address.
Is there any way that a person can be brought to account for the disparity in two addresses?
Yes, sir. I believe there is. Well,
here's my question. How is that possible unless the public has access to the information? Well, because in the
process of getting that license, the state police are going to run that person's information through multiple databases. So that means
that the state police will be running it through the voter registration database? I don't think
they run it through voter registration, Bill.
Well, here's my concern. A number of people here are concerned about who votes. and those voter lists are made available to the public. Since those
names are made available to the public, that
means that a person is held accountable for listing accurate information and by listing false information, that person can be subjected to criminal penalties.
Would you agree with that? Yes, sir. But there is nothing here to exempt a person who gives false information in obtaining a handgun for providing false information, is there? I believe that would probably be
covered under other code. Well, can you tell me
any other code under – are you the sponsor of
this bill? The House sponsor, yes, sir.
All right. Can you tell me which other code or provision would be covered under?
So here we have a situation where one person may obtain multiple guns under multiple addresses, even perhaps under multiple names, and not be guilty of a crime. Wouldn't that person
be, in your opinion, guilty of a crime of at least giving false information to a government
body in order to obtain a government permission? I can't really speak to whether or
not they would be guilty of a crime. I don't think that's covered in this bill.
This bill simply prevents their information from being released through the Freedom of Information Act.
Well, isn't one of the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act to make sure that persons act within the purview of
law at all times and that the government recognizes and observes that action within the law? I
don't believe it's the public's responsibility to police people's information and what licenses they
may be applying for. I believe that would fall under the purview of the state police. Do you
have any evidence that anybody here has sought, any person in the public,
has sought to illegally obtain information
regarding whether a person is registered to vote or is eligible to attend a public school or is eligible to carry a handgun? No, sir. Then what's the urgent necessity for this bill? Well, we have seen cases
in the past in Arkansas and in other states where this information was
used in a negative manner and put people's personal property and safety in.
So would you not agree that every possible law that we enact is capable of being misused? Sure. All right. Do we want to enact legislation to prevent all abuses to every law as a matter of priority? I mean, I think
we could pass a law that
says you can't break any laws, but I mean, we can't. I mean, that, you know, that's not practical.
Chair
Unverified
1:49:00
Representative Walker, are you? I'm finished. Okay. Thank you. Representative Gilliam, you're
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
1:49:05
next. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry about the cross-examination there, Representative Davis. Getting back to the point of the bill itself, the sponsors of this bill's intent, could you go back to address that one more time and try to line us back out here, please?
The intent is just to protect people's personal information. This information, name and zip code, could easily be used to find complete addresses,
and this information has been used in the past in a negative manner towards the people that hold these licenses, and so we just want to protect their
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:49:49
information. Keep it private. Representative Shepard,
you're next. I guess I'm wondering whether ACIC has any statement with regard to, as I understand, And ACIC has some involvement in the maintaining of records related to verifying information,
Speaker 292
1:50:03
or is that incorrect? You recognize, you'll just remind everybody who you are. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Brad Cazort with ACIC. We do not maintain the
Speaker 293
1:50:20
records of those who have concealed carry handgun permits. That's all done at the State Police. When a person is requesting a concealed carry permit, the State Police will do the background check through our database, but they maintain the records of who has those permits.
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:50:33
We do not. And I guess that was going to my question. You maintain the records that they check in the database. Is there any kind of cross-checking within your system to verify residential address? I mean, the issue's been raised, well, the veracity of information provided. Is that part of what goes on internally at ACIC within those databases? Well, our
Speaker 293
1:50:57
be checking is going to be criminal history records, and those records information comes to us, you know, starting with the initial fingerprint by a law enforcement agency who's arrested somebody.
That arrest will be issued in what's called an arrest tracking number that will follow that case all the way through, and every document that we receive from that point on from the courts or prosecutors or whatever will have that arrest tracking number on it so that we're making sure that everything we get in on that case would be all put into that particular case in that file. I'm very confident that the records we have are pretty accurate, but just to make sure you understand, we do not maintain the records of who owns a concealed carry permit. We just maintain criminal history records.
Obviously, those people who have been approved to get a concealed carry permit would be so because they don't have a criminal history record in our database. That would be one
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
1:51:57
of the factors, I'm sure. Thank you. Sorry, Rep. Ballinger, you're
next. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just had some questions. Are there other areas within state government where there's particularly security questions and so forth, especially when we have private individuals who their interests and their personal security may be a threat,
where we actually limit that information from being out to public? And just an example, you know, there's anybody who has a procedure done in a hospital that is a state-run hospital has certain FOI protections naturally in it, even though, you know, there may be some real public concern about how the hospital is run, but they've got some protection because there's privacy. Wouldn't you say that's correct? I agree. I agree. Representative
Neal, you recognize your question? Thank you. Representative Nichols, you recognize your question?
Representative Jim Nickels
Unverified
1:52:44
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, if you have a
concealed weapon permit right now, that information, at least the name and a zip
code, is discoverable under FOI, correct? That's correct. What if
Speaker 272
1:53:08
I have a hunting license? That's a good
Representative Jim Nickels
Unverified
1:53:11
question. I mean, if I think it is. It's discoverable, and if you have a hunting license, I guess that means you've got some
type of weapon, either a gun or a bow or something. So do you think we need to exclude hunting license information from FOI? Well, if you're wanting to protect the people that own a gun, and a hunting license is discoverable, I would assume that just about everybody who owns a gun also has a hunting license. I would assume there would be a high correlation with that.
So are we really keeping gun owners' information out of the system since hunting licenses and fishing licenses, that information is discoverable. I think you
make a good point, Representative Nichols. I guess the reason we've focused on this issue and concealed carry permit licenses is because they have been published in the past. To my knowledge, nobody's ever run a list of people that owned hunting licenses and published that.
It's always been focused on concealed
Representative Jim Nickels
Unverified
1:54:28
carry permits. Okay. And I think we addressed that four years ago when we only allowed the name and the zip code. took away the address for it. I think that was my first term, I believe. But anyway, I think, you know, if your issue is trying to keep that information from the public, that there's another way for the, quote, public to find out who probably owns a gun. And it's a lot larger than the concealed carry folks.
Representative John Baine
Unverified
1:54:58
Would you agree? I agree. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Bain, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. It's a little bit of a two-part question. I'm trying to understand. We've recently passed a law to allow congregations to have weapons in their churches. So if I wanted to independently verify the authenticity of a concealed carry license of an individual who may be a congregate in my church, how would I verify this if I'm not a member of law enforcement? And secondly, what if I was a trustee at a university that voted to allow
on campus, how could I confirm independently that individual's ability to concealed carry? Thank you. I believe you could just ask them to
produce the concealed carry license and show it to you. Well, when I say that, I mean
Representative John Baine
Unverified
1:55:42
independently, not anything they would provide me, but something I could get independently if I was not law enforcement. I don't
know that I have an answer for that.
somebody else may I personally don't have a concealed
carry license so I got representative Gilliam and Ballinger up and let's let's try to move on after
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
1:56:14
that y'all represented Gilliam you're recognized all right thank you mr. chair just follow up on that last question and answer there there there would be no reason that some I mean if you were looking to independently verify whether or not someone had a concealed carry license, they're required to carry that
on them, are they not, under the auspices of the license in and of itself? So if they were asked, they would be required to show that, would they not? Yes,
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
1:56:46
they would. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Ballinger. Thank you, Mr. Ficker. I guess one of my questions is, isn't sort of the point of this legislation is so that that individuals can't just go out there willy-nilly, you know, doing an FOI and then publish and research and find out who has a concealed carry, but actually has to go and ask the person and communicate with the person to find out.
Isn't that part of the? That's correct. And my other question is, while I think it may be a little bit off the point, the hunting license is, it
seems like it's a great idea if it became a problem, but is there any evidence of any problems at all with the hunting license at this point? Not that I know of.
Okay. All right. Nobody signed to speak for or against the bill. So, Representative Davis, do you want to close your bill? I'm closed. All right. What's the pleasure of the committee? Neil, I believe you had a motion at the proper time.
Got a motion. Do pass. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Ayes have it. Congratulations. The bill is passed. All right. Now, without objection, moving out of order, we're going to call Senator Dismang to proceed Senate Bill 150.
Senator, glad to have you down from the other side of the Capitol.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:58:13
You're recognized. Present your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members. Senate Bill 150. The purpose of that is allow the parole board to have the ability to not grant parole
to folks that have committed a violation that would put them on the sexual felony list. Now, with that, I mean, I'll just say, I mean, we could have brought parents in from around the state, from out of state, that would have been happy to testify on this bill, on behalf of this bill.
I didn't figure we'd put you all through that, let the bill, you know, carry itself on its merits.
And with that, just be happy to take
any questions. Any questions from the committee? Representative Walker, you're recognized. Yes, let
me understand this. You want to authorize the parole board to have an extension of discretion? Yes. And that extension is to be able to not approve parole for a person who is on the sexual offender list.
Yes. Don't they already have that discretion? Only
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:59:21
for sexual assault in the first degree, second degree, and rape. So it does not include any of the other felonies, which is a problem. I mean, typically, I think most people that – I mean, I know some of you all have been involved in similar type cases, attorneys. attorneys, but those are very difficult cases to prove, and so you'll have the individuals pleading down to a lesser offense, which, you know, knowingly, their defense attorney knowingly will place them into the mandated early parole, you know, section of the code.
Well, are you doing this because it's difficult to prove the case, and therefore the person is more guilty, and because the person is more guilty, you're going to get him on the back in and in effect use this as a way of enhancing his punishment by making
Speaker 319
2:00:08
him stay in jail longer? There would be
Senator Jonathan Dismang
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2:00:11
absolutely no enhancement or, you know, it would not enhance their punishment at all. It would just require them to serve more of their term if the parole board deems that they are not ready for the lease, ready back into the public.
I mean, just a quick case I can point back to in White County specifically recently was There was a parolee out on parole, had actually violated his parole terms by removing his anklet, was on the lam for a month or so, finally caught back up with him, put him back into the temporary remediation program, was again released on parole. He stabbed a mother, then raped an 8-year-old girl. That individual should have never been back on the streets in our system to do that to
those two individuals. He forever changed an individual's life, a young girl's life, because I believe we didn't have the proper controls in place that would have prevented him from being remitted back into society.
Well, in your hypothetical, what would have happened had the actual situation, what would have happened had
you prosecuted that person at a higher level in the first place? Well, he
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:01:23
was originally charged with rape and pleaded down to one of the lesser offenses. And so if he had been originally charged and convicted of rape, then he would not have been on early parole.
And so, like I said, again, those cases, I think any attorney in this room that's been a part of that type of case will acknowledge they're very difficult to prosecute. And, I mean, I believe that defense attorneys are knowingly utilizing the loophole and pleading down to lower offenses and so that their client is able to reach that mandated early parole. Would you not
agree that it takes two to tango? So that means for the person to plead down, the prosecutor had to have agreed?
Yes, I do. And it could have been also that the
Senator Jonathan Dismang
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2:02:11
prosecutor's case was weak. It could have been. But at the same time, they would have been found guilty of a sexual offense. Possibly. Felony. No, not possibly. They would not be in prison if they were not convicted of a
felony sexual offense. All right. Thank you. Senator Dismanian, there's a fiscal impact attached to this. Is that correct? Right. Do you know
Senator Jonathan Dismang
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2:02:31
what that impact is? It's approximately $2 million over a five-year period, and to be honest,
I think that speaks more for this bill than anything that I could say. I mean, that's acknowledging that we are allowing individuals that are not ready to be released back into society to do harm to our neighbors to the tune of about $12 million. I mean, $2 million. I apologize. on that. Do not take the 12. But, you know, there's $2 million worth of folks out on the streets that should not be on the streets if the parole board had the right to
Speaker 320
2:03:02
say no to that mandated early parole. Thank you.
Representative Scott, you're recognized for a question.
Okay, thank you. Seeing no further questions from the committee,
it looks like we've got some people signed up to speak on this. We've got
Dede Salings. Ms. Sallings, you'll recognize if you'll just
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remind everybody who you are. Ms. D.D.
Speaker 324
2:03:35
Sallings, Executive Director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission. I'm not speaking so much as against the bill as warning the emergency clause.
Under Weaver v. Graham, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that parole eligibility was a vested interest, and I think that this could be alleged to be ex post facto, so I think that needs to be clarified, that this would not apply to anybody currently serving a sentence. It would only be prospective, not retrospective, and that's all I had to say.
Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions? Ms. Saunders. Thank you. All right.
It looks like we also have signed
up Carla Swanson. Ms. Swanson, if you'll let everybody know who you are and who
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you're with, and you're recognized. Good morning, Chairman. My name is Carla Swanson. I'm with an organization called
Speaker 327
2:04:35
Arkansas Time After Time. I am here representing 11,000 families that are on the registry and are in prison. I'm here this morning to speak on opposed to SB 150
and Representative Wright I will try to keep this brief I know y'all have had a long day I am speaking on behalf of the families that can't speak I am one of the ones that is willing to put my face on a sex offender his home with me is my son is a sex offender He's 23 years old now, and he was in college at the time of his crime. He spent time in prison, and he did his time, and he paid his price for that.
He's never, ever been trouble in his life. As a mother, when I got that phone call that night, believe me, I knew my son inside and out, and there's no way I believed that he did this crime, but as it turned out, yes, he had done the crime. But at the same time, it wasn't, let me rephrase that. Yes, it was a bad crime. He did his time. But to go for the next 15 years of his life as a sex offender, I think, is wrong. You've got statistics.
If you would take the time and actually do the research like I have, trust me, as a mother and you find out that your son is a sex offender, you want to believe that your son is still a good person, just like all of the other sex offenders out there. And I have done my research, and I have found out that 95% of all sex offenders once released do not recidivism. They do not go back and commit another crime. What they're talking about is very rare.
It only happens once in a while. You only hear about the bad stories on the news. You never hear about the guys who get released on a daily basis that never commit another crime. So what you're doing is you're punishing the 95% that will never do another crime again just because of 5% of the population. And another thing I wanted to bring up is you have what they call the RSVP and the SOF program in the prisons. These sex offenders have to take this program.
They have to graduate. If Arkansas is so darn proud of these two programs, Then why are they so reluctant to let these guys out of prison once they commit or complete this program? Like I said, I was going to try to make this brief, so I won't go into much detail. Also, if this bill does away with good time behavior, I know one of the things was they asked the inmates, do you want good time or do you want to get paid for some of the work that you do?
And then, of course, a lot of them picked the good time. So if this does away with the good time behavior, does that mean the state is now going to start paying for these men for their work that they do, which is going to cost the taxpayers even more money? Another thing is one of the things that some of you have brought up earlier. Once a person goes in front of a judge or a jury and that sentence is set and agreed upon with the guidelines set by the state, then won't that make this void if this bill passed?
What's the point of even having a lawyer or a judge or a jury to even hear your case? Why not just put them in prison and let the parole board take
it from there? Ms. Swanson, I have a question. I think you're making a pretty big assumption about taking this class that everybody successfully
Speaker 327
2:08:19
completes the class. No, a lot of them don't complete the class. I'm just saying, if they do complete the class and do graduate, then
why not release that? Also, this doesn't say it stops it automatically.
It just says that the Pro Board, I believe my reading of the bill, that it allows them, if somebody is not ready to be released, they can hold them as opposed to the mandatory release. So couldn't you even agree with me that if the Pro Board determined that somebody was still not recovered and they thought that they might repeat offend, that they ought to have
Speaker 327
2:08:54
is, what I'm not liking about this bill, it is an existing bill they're just adding on. That's the problem that I'm having a problem with, is they're adding on to more sex offense.
My son would have been involved in this, and he's never going to commit, again, two nights that he spent in a county jail, my son was cured, lack of another word. young, he made a very stupid mistake, very bad judgment, just like a lot of them that do that. And I have talked to lots and lots of sex offenders just to make darn sure that I'm representing them. I want to make darn sure that I am doing the right thing. And a lot of them tell me, once the handcuffs went around their hands, once they spent a
night in jail, once they spent even a year up in jail, they're fine. They got it. What I did was wrong. I understand that. I'll never do it again. You do have 5% of the population, like the two men that were talking earlier on that one bill. Yes, there is some bad guys out there, and there is men out there that never learn from their mistake. That is 5% of the population, or the 5% population of the sex offenders. Thank you. Any other questions from the committee?
Thank you very much. Thank you. Senator, seeing no further questions, I'm closed for your bill. I'm closed
Senator Jonathan Dismang
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2:10:25
for my bill. I mean, I think everyone understands what we're trying to do here. I think it is in public good and would appreciate a good vote. Thank you, Senator. Representative Scott, you have a motion? Motion
do pass. Got a motion do pass. All those in favor, say aye.
Aye. All opposed? Congratulations. The bill is passed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
Chair
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2:10:53
committee members for your time. Good. Representative Hammer, with no objection, we're going to move back out
of order. Representative Hammer, you're recognized to present House Bill 1192. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It
Speaker 333
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would be all right if I have my guests that are with me be seated at the table.
Yes. Would the chair like me to let my guests introduce themselves now for the record? Please. My name is Seth Thomas. My name is Lanny Feint.
Speaker 337
2:11:38
Can you all tell us who you're with or what group?
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:11:41
With the property owner. Saline County Judge. Thank you. Just for the record, he is a property owner, not with the property owner's improvement district.
Thank you, Representative Hammer. You recognize? Recognizing for the respect of time and leaving time for questions, let me just set the stage. What this bill is intended to do is to prevent from happening in the future what happened to a gentleman here, Seth, that lives in the county that I represent and also that Saline County Judge Lenny Fite represents. And I will just put your mind at ease. The intent of this bill, and I believe there should be an amendment that was engrossed in it, the intent of the bill is to identify one particular area,
and that's with regards to property owners' improvement districts. It's not talking about any other districts that you may hear of, which there's 1,000 it seems out there. This is talking about the improvement district that is formed by individuals and governed by a board of individuals. So we're not talking about a government entity here. And what it is the intent of the bill to do is to limit the ability of the property owner's improvement district from being able to exercise eminent domain over other individuals for the purpose of advancing their property owner rights under the improvement district.
What I'd like to do, and I've advised Seth to be respectful of the time, but I would like for him to have an opportunity to share with the committee what happened to him because I think it will give valuable insight as how this law presently written can be used against anybody sitting around this committee table as well as anybody in the audience or anybody in the state. And with the chair's permission, I'll let Seth tell his story. Is that right, Mr. Chair? That's fine. Thank you.
Speaker 340
2:13:27
this, the improvement district, They were talking to my father, Mark Thomas, and Sharon Thomas about putting access through their property for the purpose of to prevent from having to put sprinkler systems in all the houses. And my father worked with them, and basically it boiled down to they would not pave the road.
We've got an unimproved road that we have to pay for as a neighborhood, and they would not pay the entrance. So the deal didn't go through. Then they tried to work with Ted Helmish, which the deal, nothing went through. They said they would do stuff, but it just didn't go through. then uh then they came and they took me to court and used intimate domain to take a corner of my
land uh and there was like 200 yards up the road there's 35 acres for sale which would have been a lot better you know they had other they had other uh accesses they could have gone through but i was the cheapest one to take my property than to go through buying another buying uh property that's for sale and uh during the court we uh the fire chief got on the stand and said that he
He couldn't use our road because it's an unpaved road, and they still gave them access to my land. Mr. Chairman, I asked Seth one thing to put into the
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:15:24
mix of things so the committee can understand something that I'll reference in a little bit. Sure. Seth, would you tell them about what you do for a livelihood or why you're not able to work for a livelihood? would you please explain that
Speaker 340
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please yes I was in the National Guard and I was uh I went to Iraq
in 04 and 05 and I had PTSD so now I've got a back injury so my income is fixed and when they came to me I had to hire a lawyer but I couldn't afford you know the best when they you know took me to court over it and they knew that I was a disabled veteran and their lawyer actually came to my house in the evening and was harassing me and he told me that not to get a lawyer
in Sleene County because he had them. Is that right, Mr. Chair, if I stop him there? I believe that was a good idea. Before we get to your next witness, if you just grant me a little committee, we're working committee we're going to continue to work but
Speaker 267
2:16:38
I've got some lunch some lunch coming up go ahead mr. hammer
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:16:43
all right and at this time if it's all right with the chair I'd like to let Selene County judge Laney fight because the property is in the county and that's one reason why he's here and also Laney fights the
the individual that brought this situation to my attention and asked for us to address it through a change in the law so with your permission let let Let Judge
Robert Dale
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2:17:05
County Fite speak, please. Judge Fite, you're recognized. Excuse me. The Improvement District comes through the county court, and once Seth had told me what had happened to him about eminent domain, I said this can't be right, and so we pulled up the law. And unfortunately, I'm the one that created this.
It came through the county court. And at that point, I talked to our attorney about not allowing any more in the future. And my attorney informed me that if everything's properly in order, then I would need to form these districts in the future. At that point, I thought it was time that I get a hold of representing Hammer and see if we could get the law changed. And basically what it amounts to is if it improves that, it's an investor who's opening a subdivision. And if it improves that subdivision to go and condemn somebody's property, he has the ability to do that.
Seth, he could have got the best lawyer in the world, but the law was on his side, the investors. It was on their side. He was going to lose. And that's why we're here today to see if we can get the law changed. This is the first time it's happened. I think we have, I had Chris Belize was here earlier. I think we have probably 60 improvement districts in our county. And my fear is that this will be used in the future once it's been brought to light.
And some of them did not know they had this
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:18:42
power, I'll be honest with you. And, Chairman, what I'd like to point out is that we're not here to discredit any of the improvement districts in any perception, way, shape, or form. We're not here to paint anybody out to be the bad guy because the fact of the matter is the law is what it is, and the law was followed to the letter by the judge and by the improvement districts.
But also, as we know as lawmakers, that every once in a while we recognize that in a law there is a flaw, that there is a disadvantage that is created over somebody like Seth, and I think it's our duty and responsibility to prevent that from happening. So this law is designed to prevent property owner improvement districts from being able to exercise eminent domain over their neighbors for the purpose of advancing their improvement district. And we're asking for that power to be removed. And that's the intent of the law.
I'll answer it. Thank you, Representative Hammer. Representative Steele. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Hammer, one of my main concerns here was
many of these improvement districts in rural Arkansas have used this power to deliver rural water to other areas. I see that you've exempted rural
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:19:52
water here. Is that correct? Yes. In fact, you may remember last time I sat before you, I mentioned that there was an amendment that was coming. I'm at a disadvantage. My tablet's not working. I'm working off my hard copy. But I hope that what you're looking at should have the amendment in it.
And actually, this amendment should address that particular issue because there's a utility company up in the Jonesboro area that is a property owner's improvement district for the purpose of delivering electricity to Jonesboro, kind of a unique arrangement, and that amendment was incorporated to make sure that water and electric and everything else is protected. So it's your understanding of those
improvement districts, which are very common in my part of the state,
that form together to supply electricity, water, things like that. Despite that not being city water or anything like that,
this should not apply to those districts,
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:20:46
correct? Will not adversely affect them. The only – this is like lasered in on a problem, and the problem is the property owner's improvement districts that exercise their right of eminent domain to take property away from their neighbors for the purpose of putting a road through to their property. That's what this bill addresses, does, lasers in on, doesn't bother any water districts, sewer districts.
I'm not dealing with any of those other issues that are out there, just this one. If I could, one more question, Mr.
Chairman. More. Did I understand from the judge that this is something that was a – could the quorum court have taken action? Could the county court have taken action and made it so this could not happen in the future in Saline County? Or is this statute necessary
Robert Dale
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2:21:36
for that? Yeah, a statute would be necessary. The
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:21:38
Quorum Court would have no authority on this at all. Okay. And to put your comfort level at a higher level, Chris Velines told me that the Arkansas Association County has no problems with this law,
so I think they would be very aware that if it was adversely going to affect anybody out there in the county areas or
Speaker 65
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anywhere, they would have caught it. Thank you. I
Representative Jim Nickels
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2:21:58
appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Nichols, you're next. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I
think I'm in support of this bill, but I have an issue with our tablets always going blank. And so, in essence, we don't have the bill, at least some of us don't have the bill in front of us. And so, you know, I don't know if we, you know, does that mean that we can legally vote on this issue
since it's not before some of us anyway. and so I just you know I'm just concerned about this seems
to be an ongoing problem in this committee of malfunctioning tablets and so I'd ask the chair for
Speaker 346
2:22:38
a ruling if it's properly before us if the bill cannot be drawn
Representative Jim Nickels
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2:22:44
up by members of this committee or pulled up
Representative Nichols we all feel your pain we've got IT working on it as we speak right now the ruling is as it is properly before us right now we can vote on it is there anybody that would like a copy of this bill right now we can get it going Mr. Chairman
Network difficulties We got some printing out right now While we're waiting on these to be printed out Does anybody have any questions? Representative Broadway
Representative Mary Broadaway
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2:23:51
I believe you were first Thank
you Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure that I fully understand the FAC situation that you described.
When you indicated that this would allow a property owner's improvement district to take land from their neighbors, are you telling me that you weren't a member of the property owner's improvement district, that your property wasn't part of that? No, it wasn't a part.
Speaker 340
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My land butts up to their land, and so that's okay. Certainly. Thank you.
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:24:26
Selene County Judge Lanny Fyatt has a great illustration that is taken directly from this,
and if you would allow me to, I'd let Lanny speak to that because I think it will give everybody a really good clear picture of what we're talking about. That's fine, Judge Fyatt. Go ahead. Thank you. And I hope he did because he just looked
Robert Dale
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2:24:47
at me like he didn't, but I'm sure he's going to get a good one here. I'm not sure of the illustration that Representative Hammer is talking about. I do know that this district, when it's formed, it has the ability to do things within the district. This particular one right here, what Seth was talking about, is lying on the outside of it.
And it says in improvement districts, anything for the good of that improvement district, that they can go outside that district and do certain things. And I'll be honest with you, it's like a road in a subdivision. Ours are all subdivisions, may I say. And ours is subdivisions. You may be able to put a road across my property and improve your time to town or the main road by five minutes or something like that. You may have access to your property to develop it. And I think you will see a lot of that in the future.
As I say, this has not been brought to light until this case right here, and I expect to see it in the future.
Representative Mary Broadaway
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2:25:48
Thank you. If I may just follow up briefly. Briefly. Thank you. That addresses my concern because I was under the impression that this gentleman may have been a member, and therefore he would have been under notice that
he would be subject to this. But you're telling me that's not the situation? No, they can
Speaker 337
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step outside of it. That's the danger of it right there. Thank you
very much. Representative Walker, you're recognized for question.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Hammer, is it your position
that now the authority that the county judge extended to the improvement district by following
the authority of the quorum court, he wishes to withdraw? Do you want me to answer
Speaker 333
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that, or what, Saline County Judge Lanty-Fighter, either one?
Robert Dale
Unverified
2:26:46
appreciate it. Okay. Okay. Yes, and the Quorum Court does not give it authority. The state
Speaker 337
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law gives it authority. The Quorum Court is not involved
in this at all on the local level. So you wish to have the current law amended so as to preclude the improvement districts from having broad powers
of eminent domain that extend beyond their boundaries?
As far as roads, yes. As far as roads go? Yes. That's
Robert Dale
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2:27:18
the extent of the limitation? Yes. I do not object to the water and the sewer. They follow main roads anyway, all these other utilities do. Yes. Thank you. Any
other questions from the committee? It looks like we've got somebody signed up. Is there anybody
Speaker 361
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in the audience to speak for or against this?
Karen Cooper, you're recognized. Ms. Cooper you're
recognized if you'll just tell everybody your name and who you're
Speaker 363
2:28:06
with I'm Karen Cooper I'm representing myself is the best way to
Speaker 364
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put it and I've been a victim of eminent domain
I know exactly what they're talking about Now, the concern that I have is with all these eminent domain bills, and the fact of it is is they can, let me give you a website that will help all of you kind of investigate. It's the Institute for Justice and the Castle Coalition. There's problems with this stuff all over the United States.
In fact, we're rated an F for eminent domain laws, that's how bad they are, to protect your people, their land, and their homes. In my case, it was a water problem. They can go in. The best way to describe what I want to describe is, bear with me. Mr. Kimberly, are you talking about that
we need to focus on the bill? Are you talking about improvement districts or just –
Speaker 364
2:29:19
I'm talking about maybe more than roads need to be considered. Okay. Because if it's 8-N-2, if property is 8-N-2 with utilities, they can divide. Once they're divided or damaged, then they can lowball that offer, come back with a project, and say, oh, gee, it's damaged. You're going to have to take less. And then once you're taking less, you've devalued their property. You're having to go to court to make them, you know, repair the damage or pay for the damage.
Speaker 231
2:29:55
I appreciate you being here, but we've got to
focus on the bill. It's on eminent domain for improvement district and roads. So if we're not talking about
Speaker 364
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roads or improvement districts, we've got to move on. Okay. But I live in the country. I don't live near an improvement district just like he doesn't. but I live butted right next to the city, so I can see the problem that he's having. I just wish they would kind of get all the bills together and on the same page to save money, to save time, to listen to the people where this has been done to,
so that all the problems can be kind of condensed. Thank
you. All right, there's nobody else signed to speak for or against it. Are there any other questions from the committee? Any questions from the committee? Representative, do you want to close for your bill? Briefly,
Representative Kim Hammer
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2:30:43
I'd just say this is a chance for us as a body to do something to benefit the individual who is greatly disadvantaged, and I appreciate a very positive vote. I realize there's other issues with eminent Duane. I just ask that you all don't confuse with what I'm trying to do to take care of this one when you make your vote.
Appreciate a positive vote. All right. What's the pleasure of the committee? It looks like I got a motion by Representative Gillum. Representative Gillum, what's the motion? Do pass, Mr. Chairman. Got a motion. Do pass. All those
Chair
Unverified
2:31:11
in favor, say aye. All those opposed, looks like the ayes have it. Congratulations. You passed your
bill. And thank you very much. Mr. Vice Chair, you're recognized to present Senate Bill 219.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee. It's a pleasure to be in front of House Judiciary today. We
saved a great bill for last, a real controversial, hard-hitting bill. It deals with amending Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. And I've got two experts here that we are going to be brief in describing this bill and the effect it has. But it is, all kidding aside, a very valid concern and some adjustments that need to be made to benefit our state and the Secretary of State's office and those that deal with these documents
in their everyday practice and course of life. So with that, I will yield the microphone to Mr. Steve Joyner and I believe Ms. Lisa White.
Speaker 374
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Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Members of the committee,
Speaker 375
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I'm here as a representative of the Arkansas Bar Association and as one of your uniform law commissioners. I am not going to go into detail about UCC Article 9. I still have a little bit of difficulty looking back on that portion of law school, to be honest with you.
But this is one of the most uniformly enacted provisions that the Uniform Law Commission has put out there. It's part of the UCC. I'm going to let Steve Joyner explain to you a little bit about what this does. Because it's an update of the law, it doesn't make a whole lot of substantive changes, but it does clarify some important things. I did want to tell you that so far it's been enacted in 29 states and D.C. and Puerto Rico.
It's pending in 15 states, and the other six are working on the draft legislation now. So this is rolling out to all 50 states and the
Steve Joyner
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2:33:32
territories. My name is Steve Joyner. I'm an attorney here in Little Rock. I'm also here on behalf of the Arkansas Bar Association. Cutting to the chase, the changes that are made to Article 9 of the UCC by this bill would be these are designed to address business issues and some court cases that have come
up in the last year since Article 9 had major revisions in 1998. The changes are better instructions to the name that should be listing on a financing statement, adding a four-month grace period to perfect a security interest after a debtor moves to a new jurisdiction or a successor corporation acquires property in a merger, allowing a secured party to file what's called an information statement if the secured party believes that an unauthorized amendment to its financing statement has been filed, changes
to the financing statement form to eliminate some unnecessary information, and lastly adding a provision regarding the transfer of chattel paper that is designed to agree with the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. These amendments are endorsed by the American Bar Association and the Arkansas Bar Association. We would appreciate a do-pass vote so that Arkansas would be on schedule to meet the plan nationwide July 1, 2013 effective date for these amendments?
MR. If I could add, Mr. Chairman, before I open for the questions, we have worked with the Secretary of State's Office, and I believe we are in agreement, and the Secretary of State's Office has signed off on this bill. So with that, I would be happy to entertain questions or direct them to the people that
Representative Jim Nickels
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2:35:21
can answer those. Representative Nichols, you recognize your question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, we've had a lot of publicity in the last year or so about robo-signing of mortgage documents
and financial documents and notarizing these documents and everything. Does this in any way touch on that issue? No, sir, not to my knowledge. Okay, is that your understanding, Mr. Vines? Yes. Okay, so this won't impact the apparently misconduct that occurred in the mortgage industry
with the various robo-signing things? I will yield to Ms. White on that one. No, sir, this doesn't
Speaker 375
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impact that at all. The primary changes here are just to that financing statement that gets filed, and mainly to clarify the debtor's name. But, no, sir, it doesn't get into that area at all. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Question. Ballinger, you recognize
Representative Bob Ballinger
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2:36:30
your question. Would you mind explaining, going into detail a little bit on the four-month grace period, what actually happens with it?
Speaker 385
2:36:38
If I may, in a nutshell, if a debtor
Steve Joyner
Unverified
2:36:43
moves to another jurisdiction, another state, for example, The way the UCC is written, the security interest is not perfected unless it's filed in the proper place. Well, once their residency changes, the proper place is now in Oklahoma, for example. This gives the secured party a four-month grace period to go over to Oklahoma and file
the financing statements in Oklahoma. And
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
2:37:12
I'm sure this has been thought through by a lot of folks, but one of the things that immediately I come in and think about it as a priority is that if there is nothing recorded, then a piece of property, personal property, is sold that would be subject to the financing statement, there essentially would be no notice for four months, possibly, before basically the rest of the
Speaker 385
2:37:39
Well, I don't deal very much with the retail consumer end of things, but I would
Steve Joyner
Unverified
2:37:46
presume that's why they ask for, you know, how long have you lived in your current residence so that they know that they don't need to go check in some other state where they
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
2:37:59
had lived previously. Well, my background is from title industry, you know, and doing title searches and doing UCC searches if we're dealing with the transaction of personal property as well.
And so the thing that gives me a little bit of hesitancy, and I didn't notice that in the bill before, is we've got a four-month window that there would essentially be no way for us to really know. And that may be a cost of doing business, just one of the things you've got to deal with. But it is something that I was hoping you could kind of explain to get rid
Steve Joyner
Unverified
2:38:30
of some of my concerns. All I can suggest is that if this person hasn't lived in your jurisdiction for at least four months, then you need to go search where they lived previously. Okay.
Representative Walker, you're recognized for a question. No, I don't have one. Okay. Thank you. Any other
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
2:39:00
questions from the committee? Any other questions from the committee? Representative Slinker, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm a non-lawyer, folks. I was just looking at this impact statement, the legislative impact statement. And is the gist to identify the debtor by also adding the identification card as well as the driver's license?
I'm not sure about that. The name
Steve Joyner
Unverified
2:39:24
that is supposed to be listed on the financing statement is the name that's on the driver's license. If all the person has is the identification card, then that can be used. Okay. And
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
2:39:37
then is that in your bill about using the identification card? Well, actually, the only
Steve Joyner
Unverified
2:39:42
thing that's required is if you have a valid driver's license, you have to use that name.
Speaker 391
2:39:47
Then you essentially fall back on the common law of what is that person's name.
Okay. And the name, I would say 99% of the time, the name on that identification card should be that person's legal name. Okay. Thank you. Thank
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
2:40:04
you, Mr. Chairman. Pardon me. I also
Speaker 375
2:40:08
wanted to clarify for you, too. It does say in there that if they don't have a driver's license, that you just have to have their surname, you know, their last name and their first name on there. It doesn't say that you can't add additional information, but that you're just required to have their last name and their first name.
And that's to avoid people who say, well, that's not really me because I go by these five names at a time, that kind of thing. So the law gives some clarity to what needs to be on there. And so maybe that helps answer your question. It really does. Thank
you. Are there any other questions from the committee? Seeing none, Rep. Bynes, you want to close your bill? Yes, I'm
Speaker 378
2:40:51
closing. Would offer a proper time motion. All right. Got a motion by Representative Vines.
Representative Vines, we'll set the motion. Do pass. Sure? Yes. Okay, you got a motion. Do pass. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Looks like the ayes have it. Congratulations. You passed your bill. All right. I was going to take a five-minute break and let us grab something to eat at our desk, but is there anybody else here to run a bill? Okay. Representative Neal, if you don't mind, give everybody about one to two minutes, and we're going to grab something. and we'll bring it to our desk and finish up.
All right, y'all grab a sandwich, and we'll finish this up. Neal, are you ready to present your bill with your mouth
full? Set bill 50 sets. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're recognized to present your bill.
Speaker 397
2:42:01
I'm going to refer to the amendment first. Excuse me, that's right. I'll let Brad Casort from ACIC speak to
Speaker 291
2:42:13
that. To the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, Brad Casort with
Speaker 293
2:42:17
ACIC. The amendment makes two small changes. In the definition of temporary residency, it adds the word consecutive, consecutive, so the definition is they're a temporary resident if they've been in a location for five consecutive days in a calendar year.
And in Section 3, it amends the word where it says enters into the state. It changes, enters into, moves into the state, so it's a little more clear that they're actually establishing residency. Are
there any questions from the committee members on the amendment? On the amendment. What's the pleasure on the amendment? Got a motion to do pass. Representative Gilliam, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Looks like the ayes have it. You're recognized to present your bill
Speaker 96
2:43:00
as amended. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to let Mr. Cazorek go ahead and finish up on the bill as well.
Speaker 292
2:43:08
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is just some corrections to the sex offender registration law, the suggestions that have come to us from prosecutors and judges and law enforcement of some areas that needed to be clarified and just briefly go through them. Section 1 adds a definition for the phrase temporary residency. Temporary residency is used throughout the sex offender law, throughout the code, but it's never defined, so we finally added a definition for what temporary residency is. Section 2 clarifies that violation of the sex offender law also includes filing any false paperwork
or false papers when you're verifying or registering for a sex offense. Section 3 changes from three business days to seven calendar days, the time you have to register when you move here from another state to make sure that that's consistent throughout the sex offender law. It also fills a hole that the Attorney General has opined that Arkansas may not register juvenile sex offenders who move here from another state because we have no ability in in the law to allow for them to be assessed.
So Section 3 addresses that hole and allows those to be assessed so we can register them if juvenile sex offenders move here from another state. Section 4 deals with the ability to get off the sex offender registry under current law. It's pretty clear how a person who's convicted in Arkansas gets off, but it's very confusing about somebody who was convicted in another state and has moved here, and so try to take out some of that confusion. Basically, the law would require – the current law requires them to give notice to the prosecutor where they were convicted,
and that doesn't make sense if they were convicted in Florida and had moved here. So it just clarifies how a sex offender who's moved here from
Speaker 293
2:44:56
another state can petition a court to be removed from the registry. And with that, I'll be happy to take any
questions. Any questions from the committee? Any questions from the committee? Is there anybody to speak for or against the bill? For or against the bill? Representative Neal, you want to close your bill? I'm
closed. Okay. What's the pleasure of the committee?
Got a motion. Representative Neal? Do pass. Do pass. There's a motion to
Chair
Unverified
2:45:24
do pass. All those in favor, say aye. All those opposed. Looks like the ayes have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill.
Thank you. All right. Is there anybody else here to present a bill today? Anybody else to present a bill? Got a motion to adjourn by Representative Gillum. All those in favor, say aye. Aye.
Agenda
SB237
SB92
HB1257
HB1258
SB131
SB150
HB1192
SB219
SB57
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Chair
Unverified
Representative Nate Steel Chair
Unverified
Speaker 11
Speaker 12
Representative Marshall Wright Chair
Unverified
Representative John W. Walker Chair
Unverified
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
Speaker 51
Representative Mary P. "Prissy" Hickerson
Unverified
Speaker 66
Speaker 70
Speaker 77
Speaker 76
Speaker 89
Representative John T. Vines Chair
Unverified
Representative Jeremy Gillam
Unverified
Speaker 98
Speaker 68
Speaker 112
Speaker 37
Speaker 123
Speaker 32
Representative Sue Scott
Unverified
Representative Wes Wagner Chair
Unverified
Speaker 142
Speaker 117
Speaker 140
Speaker 155
Speaker 99
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
Speaker 147
Speaker 93
Robert Dale
Unverified
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
Speaker 191
Speaker 192
Speaker 197
Speaker 198
Speaker 201
Speaker 206
Representative Charlene Fite
Unverified
Representative Mary Broadaway
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Speaker 237
Speaker 223
Speaker 244
Representative Jim Nickels
Unverified
Speaker 248
Speaker 235
Speaker 259
Speaker 175
Speaker 213
Speaker 267
Representative Andy Davis Chair
Unverified
Speaker 278
Speaker 292
Speaker 293
Speaker 272
Representative John Baine
Unverified
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
Speaker 319
Speaker 320
Speaker 323
Speaker 324
Speaker 326
Speaker 327
Speaker 325
Speaker 333
Speaker 337
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
Speaker 212
Speaker 340
Speaker 65
Speaker 346
Speaker 361
Speaker 363
Speaker 364
Speaker 231
Speaker 374
Speaker 375
Steve Joyner
Unverified
Speaker 385
Speaker 42
Representative Mary L. Slinkard
Unverified
Speaker 391
Speaker 378
Speaker 397
Speaker 291
Speaker 96