Judiciary Committee - Senate
Video
Transcript
1 document
Bills discussed (1)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
SB24
Act 250
· 5 mentions in chapter, agenda, transcript
Matched: “SB24 B. Ballinger CONCERNING THE DEFENSE OF A PERSON WITH THE US…”
|
CONCERNING THE DEFENSE OF A PERSON WITH THE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE OR DEADLY PHYSICAL … | B. Ballinger | Notification that SB24 is now Act 250 |
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- Whisper
- Model
- ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin RTX5060
- Processing date
- October 7, 2026
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
0:00
we are called to order good morning our first issue of business is going to be to adopt our rules uh have all the members had a chance to look at the rules the one change that the judiciary committee has done differently is number three all amendments to the bills must be in writing
verbal amendments are not permitted our rules are minor technical verbal amendments are allowed we do that a lot of business happens on this committee so that we don't hold up things that can move on and the committee will decide what is a minor technical verbal amendment but um it must be very minor a lot of times you know there's a word or two uh that are just simply misplaced or wrong that wasn't caught sometimes there may be a
short sentence uh that just needs to be changed and that's agreed upon uh that can be done but if the committee agrees or the majority uh then we will do those otherwise they have to be in writing any questions on the rules with motion to adopt the rules motion and a second any discussion hearing none all for the motion signify by saying aye all opposed motion carried rules are adopted
Speaker 8
1:51
what else do we need okay we have adopted uh some
Speaker 10
2:03
covid rules which include uh y'all taking your own
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:13
trash with you when you leave the otherwise I
hope the rules are posted somewhere
we will all be trying to
get used to them including myself so they do include that you can members can take their mask off when they're speaking directly into the mic I hope that you do so that I can understand you but other than that we're supposed to have our mask on the and the rules for how we bring people in that
can't fit in here I will have to get used to because we want to be sure that we
that the public has their chance to to speak and participate the yes central flowers Does the mask
Speaker 14
3:10
requirement relate and is it supposed to be adhered to my members of the audience?
Speaker 10
3:15
Yes, everyone in the Capitol. Okay, I've noticed that one that doesn't have a mask on.
Speaker 18
3:36
We have masks, so we forgot him. HE SAYS HE HAS A MEDICAL
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
3:50
EXCEPTION. SEN. FLOWERS, HE SAYS HE HAS A MEDICAL EXCEPTION. THIS ONE, BE SURE YOU ARE AWARE.
I am not good with the formalities we have some folks here or may not have
them here the because of uh, COVID, uh,
I don't know what. Okay. Uh, I appreciate your interest and I'd like to take pictures myself. Uh, this is a legislative Senate committee meeting. Uh, it's going to be about business. If you can take a picture from where you're sitting, please feel free to do so.
But we will be pretty formal. Do we have any of our organizations here that are normally here? Prosecutors?
Okay. Well, when we get a chance to recognize you here, we
will. We appreciate the work that you do we appreciate our staff you will see how much I depend on them as time goes on and the appreciate all the members of this committee anyone that was here two years ago know how hard this committee works how much business comes before us and on that note I tend to be a very patient chair as witnesses
testify uh if early we have what have so many bills coming this year uh if early witnesses tell their life story uh the committee will get blamed for limiting debate and us not hearing witnesses on down the list uh and so if the chair interrupts and asks that we get to more pertinent things it's not because i'm trying to be a jerk but because i'm trying to get to to all the people who drove from the four corners of the state if it's possible and often it will not
be possible to get to them all so we will sometimes ask people to get to the pertinent points and remember that if you're up at the front of the
list so that being said we have
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
6:56
agenda we have sb24 uh center ballinger
and i believe it has an amendment center ballinger are you ready
Speaker 36
7:07
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I ask that we bring Mr. Matt Harriman with the NRA to the table as he's going to
Speaker 41
7:33
help in presentation. Absolutely. The amendment is really pretty straightforward.
It doesn't change the substantive nature of the
Chair
Unverified
7:39
bill. It just brings some clarification. So if you'll look. Hold on just a second. Yes,
Speaker 44
7:50
Senator Flowers. Everyone does not have a copy
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
7:55
of your amendment, Senator Ballinger. They're passing it out. Okay, that's
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
8:07
everyone have a copy of the amendment you may proceed
Chair
Unverified
8:34
central belliger my mistake yeah no thank you so if you look on page three starting line 18 that's where the the fourth exemption on
standard ground is that had people have had some concern with the language so basically what we did is we made an amendment pointing directly to the code section dealing with felony possession of a weapon to clarify that that is is I don't think it changed any of the the meaning of the of the code and we clarified this with the Prosecutor Association and and so we are we're amending that to make it as as tight as it possibly can be happy to answer any
questions and if not I move
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
9:23
that the amendment be adopted have a motion in
a second questions discussion flowers you say the amendment was approved by the the Prosecuting Attorneys Association.
Speaker 56
9:38
Yes, ma'am. When was that done? This was done Monday. Monday? Yes, ma'am. Is there
Speaker 58
9:44
someone here from the Prosecuting Attorneys Association?
Chair
Unverified
9:47
I think I actually saw Bob. I know that before they were going to the holding room, but yeah, but I mean, honestly, they're happy to testify if we need to bring them up, but if Bob wants to come up, that's fine with me. I'd like for them to confirm that they agree with the amendment. You're talking about the amendment?
Yes. Yes. Okay. I believe us. Because I had not seen the amendment before. I don't think the public has either. Okay.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
10:19
And so you won't hear from the prosecutors on the
Speaker 66
10:31
amendment? Yes. Okay. Mr. McMahon? And please
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
10:39
identify yourselves for the record.
Daniel Shue
Unverified
10:50
Daniel Hsu, I'm prosecuting attorney for the 12th Judicial District, and I am the legislative chairperson for the Arkansas Prosecuting
Attorneys Association. No. Senator Flowers? So as the sponsor stated, is it correct that the association has
given their approval of the proposed amendment? Yes, Senator Flowers.
Speaker 69
11:21
I'm looking at it right now, but we have previously seen this And what Senator Ballinger said is correct. We have approved this amendment to SB24.
Speaker 76
11:28
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
11:32
other questions from the committee to the prosecutors about this amendment? Seeing none, thank you all for coming to the table. Any other discussion on the amendment? I have a motion and a second.
All for the amendment signify by saying aye. All opposed? Motion carried. The bill is amended. Senator Ballinger,
would you like to present your bill as amended? Yes,
Chair
Unverified
12:08
Mr. Chair. It's okay with the committee. So what I want to do is start with probably the best place anytime you're dealing with legislation is actually go over the bill itself. We're going to hear today everything from, you know, basically the sky is falling to maybe some technical concerns or maybe the bill doesn't go far enough.
There's a variety of things that we're going to hear about. But primarily the best thing for this committee, I think, to do is to actually go to the bill and look at the bill and the language and what we change. And so I'm going to try to go over that before we do anything else. So if you look on page one, the only change is we incorporate the word physical force. It doesn't make any substantive change other than it makes it consistent throughout the rest of the code where it says force, obviously referring to physical force. So that's the only change there. Then if you go down to on page two, starting in line 12, this is dealing with the code section that deals with non-deadly force.
and this is just basically where it shows that a person doesn't have an obligation to retreat unless they fall into one of these categories you know if they if they if they're lawfully present where they're at then they're they have no duty to retreat if they're not engaged in criminal activity they have no duty to retreat if they're not involved in gay material you have no duty to retreat so essentially what this bill is doing 30,000 foot view is in 98.9 percent of the cases you're going to be where you're allowed to be you're going to be doing what you're allowed to do. You're not going to be a felon in possession of firearm. And it just removes the duty to
retreat, as you find in actually many other jurisdictions. I think if you guys have a map that shows that this shows 36 jurisdictions that have some form of stand your ground. Many of them have it virtue code, just like this, 28 of them, something like that. Ohio, who's just recently did that and then others have it be a case law or jury instruction but essentially a vast majority of the other jurisdictions other states have no duty to retreat well this language basically would
bring us to that same place so once again you go down to the the the bottom of of page two and it's it's where I actually had the language before that actually stated that you had an obligation to retreat and this of course is is under the 52607 that deals with the lethal force and so the first changes here is where we just take out that whole code section that said that
you had a duty to retreat previously and then if you go down on the bottom of page or in page three you see once again the substantive language that says the person is not required to retreat before using deadly force if the person one is lawfully present at the location where deadly force is used. Second is reasonably believed that the person consumed with deadly physical forces and immediately threatening or causing death or physical injury to the person or another, except as provided in, and this code section is one that references back to 606, which you can see if you want to
look at that, you can. It's at the top of page two, and it says if you're the initial aggressor, you have an obligation still to retreat unless you've actually notified the other party of your intent to deescalate. So it's basically referencing back to existing language that already exists. One thing that I think is really important to remember is not only is this bring us into conformity with most jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions does not put the burden on the innocent party to prove that they have the ability to retreat if they're lawfully where they want to
do. So, you know, clearly it's not, but this also doesn't back up from rights that you already have, right? So even these exceptions that we're going over here, all they do is put you back under the current law, which requires you to have a duty to retreat. So section four is the one that we've just omitted. And if you look back at the amendment, the amendment states, instead of just saying it's a felony offense of possession, it points directly to that code. So if you're a felon in
possession of firearm, you don't lose your right to self-defense. You just have an obligation to retreat unless you're in your home or your cartilage. And then number five, you're not involved in gang activity that gives rise to the use of deadly force. You're not committing a crime using the deadly force is what is the crime is what's required the use of the deadly force and then you're not involved in gang activity as described. One thing that has produced some confusion I think is really important that we pointed out so that you guys understand what
we're doing several sessions ago I carried a bill on the House side that dealt with the ability of a pregnant woman to protect her the life of her baby and I think Senator Stubblefield carried it on the on the Senate side and and this bill does not take that away doesn't minimize that what it takes away is a requirement for her to retreat if she can retreat safely which is what used to be in the code so the reason why this language is in there is we're taking out basically that limitation on her ability to defend herself and so she would have no duty to retreat just like
the rest of the people would and so that's why that language is in there. I'm happy to answer any questions on it but you know in short this you're going to hear that this is a license to kill that's shoot first and ask questions later you know as the map sitting in front of you that's that isn't the way it is in California, Illinois or the 34 other jurisdictions other states that have it. It's existed. It's been passed in one form or another in all those other places, either by virtue of case law or by code. It's not been repealed in any of those places.
So clearly it's something that law enforcement are finding ways to manage. We worked real diligently with the Prosecutor Association, so they're neutral on this bill. Sheriff's Association, they're neutral on this bill. Police Chiefs Association, they're neutral on this bill. The AG's Attorney General's Office supports this legislation. So at this point, we've gotten to a point where we've kind of worked with all the parties to get this done finally for the state of Arkansas and for the citizens of the state of Arkansas. And so because of that, I would appreciate a good vote from this committee.
And Mr. Harriman, Matt Harriman is going, has some words to add as the NRA has helped us in this legislation over the last couple of years.
Matt Harriman
Unverified
18:38
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee for the record. My name is Matt Harriman. I'm the state director for the National Rifle Association. On behalf of tens of thousands of NRA members across this state, I ask that you vote yes on Senate Bill 24. Thank you, Senator Ballinger, for your work on this important piece of legislation.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I'm going to be brief and primarily debunk a couple of myths that Senator Ballinger actually has already touched on that the other side is going to lead you to believe and which I suspect you will hear at some point today. The first is that this is a radical policy that's going to turn Arkansas into the wild, wild west. The second is that Stand Your Ground is going to give people a license to murder. These two arguments could not be further from the truth.
First of all, this is not a new or uncommon policy. Stand your ground or no duty to retreat laws are the norm across this nation in at least 34 states that do not require a duty to retreat either by statute or by case law. Ohio just joined this group actually last week. Secondly, Senate Bill 24 does not encourage violence or give anyone a license to murder.
In reality, this is a very narrow concept that simply protects victims of violent crime that choose to defend themselves before attempting to flee. Besides this single element of being required to run before you defend yourself, use of force, justification, and self-defense scenarios does not change. Force must still be proportional to the threat.
So in closing, this is a common sense measure that protects victims and is already the law in most of this country. I hope Arkansas is the next to join in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
20:49
okay i have uh senator garner and then center flowers in the queue so garner you're recognized thank you
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
20:56
mr chairman so the key point of this is that this doesn't change any of the standard
dealing when you can actually use self-defense that doesn't change one part of a code doesn't change one iota of how it's been done in arkansas for the last hundred years it simply has to focus on if you have that duty to retreat so if somebody is the initial aggressor if all those safeguards that protect the citizenry they'll exist whether we pass this or not but if they're also included in this as well aren't they senator
Chair
Unverified
21:28
ballinger that is correct yeah the the right of self-defense is not only you know ingrained in arkansas code it's also ingrained in our common law ancient common
law and and none of that is really being changed one thing that's unusual in arkansas is that we have the duty to retreat. And that puts us outside of the norm. What this does is this takes it away. There are exceptions to that in those narrow cases if you're trespassing, if you're a felon in possession of a weapon. But even then, your duty is only to retreat. You still have all of these underlying rights of self-defense without worrying about being prosecuted for that, just like you do today. Senator Flowers, you're
recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I don't plan to belabor
with a lot of questions.
I understand that five sponsors are members of the committee. But I do have a question just in terms of how this would be enforced and what are we actually doing. Are we, on this section
that was amended today, are we saying that a person having been convicted of a felon and under our present law that provides that certain persons, such as those convicted felons, not be allowed to possess a weapon,
that they have a right to have a weapon at their dwelling and to use it to defend themselves from deadly or imminent deadly force. Is that what we're saying here? No, ma'am, but
Speaker 55
23:18
I definitely can see where that question would come from. So what is really important to realize is
Chair
Unverified
23:24
that this code section is only dealing with the self-defense section.
And so what it's saying here is you, if you're in your dwelling, just like today, this doesn't change today's law. If you're a felon in possession of weapon, then you still have the rights of what they call the castle doctrine. You have no duty to retreat if you're in your home. You can still be prosecuted as a felon who's possessing a weapon. That underlying crime, we're not changing here. So it's still unlawful for him to have a weapon. That would be a separate thing. The question of whether or not he'd be guilty of murder if he didn't retreat in his own home would be this would be where this defense comes in so there and I think that there are a lot of
people who are not happy that it's so hard for a felon to have his his gun rights restored there's a lot of concern about that but this bill doesn't address that at all this will keep the law exactly the same basically as it is today when it comes to a felon in possession of weapon so
Speaker 97
24:20
it doesn't give them any additional rights but it doesn't take any rights
Speaker 98
24:25
away And so then the other matter is the intent required.
So in order to have to get around the duty to retreat, you have these six factors on page three. being lawfully present at the location where the deadly force is used. Number two has a reasonable belief that the person against whom the deadly force is used
is imminently threatening to cause death or serious physical injury to that person or another person. They don't have to be related, but the idea that they have to have a reasonable belief. Our current law says that if you know you can avoid the necessity of using deadly force, you retreat if you can retreat safely. So that intent, reasonable belief versus
knowing that you can avoid something by safely retreating, can you talk about that and
why why that is now the level of intent. Yes,
Chair
Unverified
26:09
Senator Flyers, if you look back on page 2 in line 21, you have the original code section under 5-2-6-0-7. And if you go down to under A, it deals with that same reasonable belief.
And this actually isn't anything unique at all to Arkansas Code. That goes all the way back to the ancient common law right of self-defense. One thing that different jurisdictions historically have been is whether or not you have the right of self-defense in other people. And so this makes it clear that you have the right to defend another person. So if you're in a situation where there is an active shooter, even if you can escape safely, you could still engage to defend that other individual because their life is threatened. And so the reasonable belief, I mean, you know you're an attorney.
You understand that that reasonable person standard is something that you have to apply in the law, even though sometimes it is not as clear, but there's no other way around it. You've got to apply whether a person would be reasonable.
Speaker 91
27:04
And so that's why it's important to have good jurors and good jurists who will reasonably apply
the facts. And so a juror would be presented with facts by the prosecutor, and maybe this is a question for the prosecutors if they care to come to the table.
But in terms of the character and the behavior
that the person who uses the deadly force to defend
themselves because they reasonably believe someone is threatening them with serious bodily
injury, or as the law states, it's serious
or imminent, deadly physical force.
Would it be left to the discretion of the prosecutor to determine the character of that individual, the victim? Or is it totally left
on what the perception is of the one who uses the deadly force? How do you determine the reasonable belief that the person who uses the deadly force has? In terms of
the victim, if it's a disabled person, if it's someone that is, their culture is different,
you say that they can be lawfully, they have to be lawfully present at the
Speaker 105
28:47
location. Well, if you're in a place where you've never been
before, around people that you've never been around before, culturally you've never been
acquainted with, how do you square that reasonable belief? So it's just a matter of
Speaker 107
29:09
whatever that person thinks coming from where they come from?
Chair
Unverified
29:17
Senator Flyers, what I would say is just like today, the standard is not necessarily of that person. The standard is whether or not a reasonable person in that fact pattern would find it as a threat, an imminent threat. And so, but that isn't a change in the law. That's ancient where they're applying the reasonable person standard. Ultimately, it will be up to the prosecutors. They have some discretion in deciding whether to prosecute, but that's not really the final say will be the judge or the jury in most cases will make that decision.
And it will be hopefully with a lot of good facts presented so that that answer would be made clear. And so, but that's not, the only question here is really whether or not they, that we're changing here is whether they have a duty to retreat. The underlying self-defense is not changing. So they still have to go through that reasonable person standard in order to ever get whether he was acting in self-defense or not. So, I mean, I wish that there was a better answer.
It's evidence that the law in our system is not perfect. And it's the worst except for every other system, right? So it just is dependent upon the good jurors and good judges who are looking at those fact patterns. Senator Hendren, you're recognized. Thank you,
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
30:48
Mr. Chairman, Senator Ballinger, Mr. Herman, I appreciate your presentation.
I've got just a few questions. I want to start with the map that you put out. You know, one of the things we always do when we bring legislation is we try to show that it's worked in other places, it's not caused problems in other places, and that there's a need. So I want to ask a little bit about those two propositions with regard to this legislation. Because it is compelling that 34 states have similar legislation. But it'd be even more compelling, say, a piece of legislation had 47 states.
Speaker 55
31:27
Wouldn't you agree? Yes, it would. If what we're talking about is moving into having the ability to protect themselves. No,
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
31:37
well, regardless, I mean, the fact that a piece of legislation has been successful or not been problematic in 34 states, if it's valid in one case, it would be even more valid if it were 47 states. I think that argument could be made. Okay. So that has to do with whether or not it's been workable in other states.
Now let's talk about the need. And I've heard this question asked a lot, but I've not gotten a good answer to it. And I was involved on the, you'll recall, two years ago with some negotiations trying to find a piece of legislation that could get people to be comfortable with this. And not being an attorney, forgive me if some of these questions are a little bit simplistic. I'm just trying to understand it. And one of the questions that I've heard asked many times that I've still not heard an answer to is,
is there a case in Arkansas of somebody being prosecuted because they exercised their right of self-defense rather than fleeing? And the answer to that is
Chair
Unverified
32:42
I really don't know for sure. But let me give you a little bit of anecdotal evidence. I had a mama call me whose son was arrested for second-degree murder. It was when we ran this bill last time is when she gave me a call. The story goes like this.
Mom and son were in the car, or not mom and son, son and a friend were in the car riding together. Friend and son got into an altercation, got into an argument. it. Friend pulls out a steak knife out of the center console of the car and goes to at least act as if he's going to attack this mama's son. Son pulls over, runs, the passenger chases him down, cuts him legs, something like that. Then they get in a wrestling match. Son gets the knife
away from the, from the original aggressor and stabs him in the leg. He, son runs back to the car, is getting in the car, trying to take off. Original aggressor comes up, catches him. He turns around and stabs, stabs the original aggressor and kills the original aggressor. And then son was prosecuted for second degree murder. Now, one thing I know for sure, that's all mama's facts. It was, it was told to me through mama's eyes. He was prosecuted. He made the claim of self-defense and the prosecutor said he could have retreated because he's the one who had
the weapon. Now, you and I know that if you had just wrestled the weapon away from the guy and the guy has, you know, accosted you, that you can't escape with complete safety. However, what that fact pattern provides is that a prosecutor who may not be doing things exactly right, may not be motivated for the right reasons, that that individual may be somebody who wasn't popular in the community, wasn't well connected, wasn't part of a powerful family. He could have killed somebody who was part of a powerful family, and it could have been very popular to prosecute
that guy for murder. Now, one reason why we don't have a whole lot of stories is we have great prosecutors. And I had one prosecutor who last time when he was testifying saying, I don't even take into consideration whether they could retreat. And the reason is, if you have an absolute right of self-defense, if you're retreating, you still have an absolute right of self-defense. It's really ambiguous and hard thing to deal with. And that's the reason why, one, majority of other jurisdictions have done this, and two, they haven't repealed it. It's because it is better, more clear policy.
Was the person convicted? They were convicted. And Mama will say the guy's struggling, doesn't have a job, can't get a job, that he was a decent kid who may have had his problems but didn't really have run-ins with the law. And now his life is ruined because he's sitting around with a murder rat. And let me say this. If I sat down and I talked to the prosecutor, I understand that there would be a different set of facts. Mama's eyes are different than others. But what I would say is it's great illustration
of the way that leaving ambiguous law in place, leaving bad policy in place, can be used in order to damage and hurt people who are not as connected and not as powerful that don't have the money for for the same kind of high dollar defense attorneys like some other people have. Are the representatives
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
36:10
of the Prosecutor Association familiar with that case? Because again I want to hear if there's actually a case in Arkansas of somebody being convicted because they did not flee. I'm positive
Speaker 36
36:22
that there is a prosecutor that is familiar with that case. I don't I've never talked to the Prosecutor Association. If
Chair
Unverified
36:27
I did, I did it just like you. It's anecdotally. And the reason for that is because I don't know the facts from the other
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
36:34
side. Well, I'll just, again, what I'm hearing is what mom told you. Right. And we have represented the Prosecutor Association here. And when they come, I'll tell you in advance, that's the question I'm going to ask them is, is there a case? Is there a need? Because again, one of the things I said about whether or not we bring legislation is, has it worked in other states? And is there a need? For instance, another bill,
I know the FBI says there were 10 cases in 2018 of people being targeted and convicted of crimes because they were of their race or one
because of their sexual orientation. So we know I can point to those cases, and I'm asking if you can do the same on this. Yeah, and you're, I mean, I
Speaker 110
37:13
completely understand why you're trying to run
Chair
Unverified
37:16
that other bill right now, but that's not what this is about. The reality is we are a legislative body. It's our job to go out and decide what is the best policy and to put that forward.
It's our job, if we spot something that's ambiguous in the law, someplace where citizens are not being defended fully and innocent citizens are being placed with a burden to run away when they're being attacked, that it's our job to fix that. And as I've said, multiple occasion, one reason why there's not a whole lot of cases out there where we look at and we point at It's because our prosecutors are doing a really good job. They're not taking into account whether the person could retreat. And I get that. The only problem with that is that's not really their job.
It's their job to enforce the law, not to make good decisions about what good and better policy is under the law. That's our job. So what we do is we need to fix it so that it brings it into conformity to what
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
38:12
is really what is best practice today. Okay. And, again, I've got a couple questions specifically about the bill.
And you're right, I am contrasting because I do see a lot of similarity in the arguments for and against this bill. So let's talk about the bill in particular. On page two, where it talks about one of the exceptions is not engage in activity in furtherance of a criminal gang.
What does that mean? Wearing a gang shirt, being a gang member. Have you looked up the code
Speaker 110
38:39
section that it references? Well, so that's the answer. Can you tell me the answer? Well,
Speaker 97
38:44
and honestly, I haven't even looked up that in a long time. So all this is saying
Chair
Unverified
38:49
is that other code section. Now, if you have a problem with that other code section and how that's defined, you're a legislator, you're a state senator, you could file a bill to address
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
38:58
that. Well, I'm just asking, since it's in the bill, and you're right, I can go look at 574-103. Yes.
But it's to sponsor the bill. And it's somebody, again, who's not a lawyer who goes and looks at the law code.
Chair
Unverified
39:11
Can you just tell me what that means, furtherance? It's furtherance of gang activity, as defined as this code section. And that's what it means. What it means is that's one of the things that the Prosecutors Association had some concerns with. They wanted to make sure that a person who was in furtherance of gang activity were not in a situation where they wouldn't have a duty to retreat. And they've asked for that specific exception. And so that's the reason why it's in there. And if that code section is something that is erroneous or wrong, I'll be happy to work with you to fix that.
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
39:39
Okay, on page three, where he talks about a reasonable belief, and I think Senator Flower has kind of touched on this. So basically, the difference in whether or not a person is convicted and goes to prison or is released because of stand your ground is their thoughts, is what their state of mind
Chair
Unverified
40:00
was. Is that right? No, it's whether a reasonable person in that situation would have acted that same way. That's what it's, I mean, it is the reasonable person standard, which we utilize over and over again in criminal law.
Speaker 119
40:12
And as on page two in, you know, on line 24, you'll see is already in the current law.
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
40:18
So you believe that a person's motive and state of mind as compared to a reasonable person are something that should be considered with regard to the impact of our justice system and how we do crap? I mean, there's that silly
Chair
Unverified
40:30
line in the movie where, you know, you keep saying that over and over again, but I don't think you really understand what that means. You're kind of making two arguments in two different directions. But I'll go to mens rea, mental state, right?
So we do that all the time, a person's mental state, whether they're knowingly act, whether they purposefully act, whether they negligently act. Mens rea is an element of crimes. However, here, it's not so much about mens rea. It has to do with, it really doesn't even try to get into the mind of that individual. It really is more of the facts around the case and whether a reasonable person would have perceived it as an imminent threat. I get it. I just, and I
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
41:10
agree with your point. I think it is very valid that in many parts of the law, we consider what a person's state
of mind, thoughts, motivations were, whether it be first, second degree murder, or whether you're targeting somebody because of other factors.
Chair
Unverified
41:21
Senator Hendren, one thing I would just say real quick is, you know, I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to run your hate crimes bill at some point. There are a lot of people who've traveled a lot away to come and testify, mainly against this bill. And one thing I would want is that, you know, we get an opportunity for them to actually come and talk about this piece of legislation and not your legislation. And I get that's the most important thing to you, but the people who've come here are actually wanting to talk about this bill.
And at some point, there's going to be somebody who's going to make a motion for immediate consideration if this keeps dragging on. I don't want
Speaker 124
41:55
anybody to get cut off. Can I give an example? And this will be my final thing with
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
42:00
regard to this. Both of you will excuse me. That's my call. And I understand what Senator Hendren is doing. As a member of this committee at this moment, I'm allowing it. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If you let him ask questions, if you'll answer the questions, and let's keep this moving.
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
42:22
All right. And this is my final one, and I think it is absolutely specifically focused on this bill because it has to do with how this is going to be implemented. And I'm just trying to understand. So we look at the events of last week and the riots that went on in Washington, D.C. Let's say that in that situation, out on the Capitol steps, before they've breached the doors and are inside the capitol building. We had news crews there covering those events. Let's suppose that a member of the news crew began to feel threatened by the actions of the
road the protesters to the point where they felt like they were going to get trampled or they were going to get in they were getting attacked verbally maybe called it's a fake news and and all the stuff that's caused this thing, and they begin to feel at
Speaker 110
43:15
risk. Would they be able to just pull out a gun and shoot somebody? The answer is it
Chair
Unverified
43:21
depends. Would a reasonable person in that situation, would they have the ability to do that? And so it really comes to the facts.
If it is just the fact that people are allowed and they're yelling fake news, okay, no. The answer is clearly no. But what if an individual is coming out and attacking them? What if it's because it's some media outlet they don't like and they're attacking them personally because of it and they're coming and they're making actual threats? You know, you have the ability to defend yourself with proportional defense. And so, but it really, honestly, it's the reasonable person tangent. But guess what? This bill doesn't change that. The only question here is whether that individual would have a duty to retreat or not.
And that's, we're just making that a little more clear. The question of whether they can defend themselves is already well established in the law. Okay, and
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
44:08
with regard to that scenario, because another criticism I've heard about this, and I'll be interested to hear the data from some of the people that, as you said, oppose this bill, because all of us have gotten a lot
Speaker 128
44:23
of information on this. Will you tell me that, do you believe that in
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
44:27
that situation, let's suppose that news crew or the cameraman felt threatened, and maybe legitimately so,
and rather than choosing to retreat, chose to exercise deadly force and killed that person. Do you think the likelihood that that defense would stand up exactly the same percentage of time, whether that was a black protester or a white protester, given the data and the stuff that's out there? Because I'm just going to tell you, that's what I've been told is there's a difference in the way this comes out in the end. and I
want to know if you think that's true or is the data wrong or what's your position on that?
Chair
Unverified
45:05
Yeah, Bloomberg has spent a lot of money on research and I'm happy I could roll out a lot of research that's done by John Lott that'll tell you that that's absolutely false, right? And he'll tell you also that it actually reduces crime when you pass stand your ground. Now, the reason why I don't roll out John Lott's research is because I know where he stands on guns. I know where he stands on this issue. We also know where Bloomberg stands on this issue. And so the reality is the statistics show that it's used more proportionally amongst minorities, but it's
only because of the instances are usually. Typically, the victim and the perceived perpetrator are of the same race. Like 80% of the time, that's what happens. And so I think that, I think what it is is you're seeing data that's skewed and utilized for a specific purpose, which you've been around long enough, you know how that rolls. So that's what it is. Thank you,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
46:03
Mr. Chairman. If you are a very expressive person, this may not be the room for you. I'm going to tell you
again, this is a Senate committee room. And if you make a noise of approval or disapproval,
the Capitol Police will be escorting you out. Does everybody understand? This is not a football game. Thank you. Senator Garner. Okay.
Any other questions? Seeing none, then we're moving to for
and against. The, I got you. Arkansas has a law that I very much appreciate that allows the public, every citizen, to
come to the Capitol and speak for or against every bill as much as can be allowed within a timely process and rules of the committee.
and so we have a sign-up sheet online, we have a sign-up sheet here and it's done in order and we start with against and Senator Flowers has asked to go first to speak against the bill and Senator Flowers, I'm going to ask, since you've asked to speak against the bill that
you move down to the end of the table and
Speaker 130
48:01
Senator Hendren? Yeah, are we going to hear from any prosecutors, anybody else going to speak on this bill before the members
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
48:12
do their for and against? They're not signed up. Normally, if they had signed up, but as they have in the past, I would be calling on them. Okay. And if there's someone you all want to hear from, as always, you can tell me again I don't want to delay this I think
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
48:29
we know where it's going but I would like to hear from the prosecutors quickly if they can point to
Speaker 144
48:35
a case where somebody was convicted because
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
48:41
of a failure to retreat okay central flowers is you want
Speaker 145
48:48
to delay I know since flowers do you want to delay while we bring pressure okay Okay,
Speaker 148
49:10
they say they don't have that information.
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
49:18
guess what I'm not just that case. I'm saying, can you point to a single case where there has been
Speaker 21
49:28
a conviction because of somebody's failure to retreat? And it's not the prosecutors, Senator Hendren,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
49:34
that I would expect to answer that question. It would be the trial lawyers or the public defenders.
I would think the prosecutors would think that they always, everybody they put in prison was supposed to go to prison. So it would also be interesting to ask the
Sheriff's Association and others if they ever threaten people with prosecution because I know what the answer to that would be. Senator Flowers, since you are testifying against
Would you please identify yourself as other
witnesses would? Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I am Stephanie Flowers, State Senator for District 25. I hope I'm speaking
plainly enough for everyone to hear me so that I don't have to take off my mask. I would prefer not to.
I have a few remarks to make. I think most people remember
me from the last General Assembly session in 2019 in March when Senate Bill 484 came before
us. AND ULTIMATELY THERE WAS A VIRTUAL VIDEO THAT WENT ALL OVER THE WORLD.
SO I EXPRESSED STRONGLY MY OPINION AND MY OUTRAGE WITH THE WAY
THE PROCESS WAS GOING AT THAT TIME, AND I'M THANKFUL THAT WE DID NOT HAVE A MOTION TO LIMIT THE DEBATE. At the same time, I
understand that with this bill today, Senate Bill 24, we have eight committee members, five of which are either the sponsor or the co-sponsors of this bill.
So I can count, and I know that it only takes five votes to get out of the committee. So I'm not going to hold you long, but I wanted to say something in opposition and to give you my feelings and my thoughts about why I oppose the bill. So I appreciate you all indulging me for a few minutes. And I'm not
I wanted to start off, I was struck by something Senator Ballinger said when he presented his bill. He said, our job is to find the best
policy, good and better policies. And
that's interesting. I believe that, too.
So we do agree on that.
However, I don't think this is the best policy. I don't think it's
a good policy. I don't think it's a better policy than what we have in our law right now. Our law right now says a person can defend himself from deadly physical force. And particularly at their dwelling place. The law doesn't say
retreat from your dwelling place. That's been our law. It's
settled in Arkansas. People have always been able to defend
their homes without any possibility of prosecution for defending themselves at their dwelling place against deadly physical force. That's established, well established in our law. Our
law says that if a person, well, it says a person is justified in using deadly physical force upon another person, this is section 607, 52607.
We're not talking about just the physical force, because the physical force,
that is not so much objectionable
to me, except that it
seems that we are encouraging
people to not avoid confrontations when they could be safely done. But the one that
gets me is this 52607, use of deadly physical force in defense of a person. It says a person is justified in using deadly physical force upon another person if the person reasonably believes that the other
person is one committing or about to commit a felony involving force or violence.
Two, using or about to use unlawful, deadly physical force, or three, imminently endangering the person's life or imminently about to victimize the person, as described in 9.15.103, from the continuation of a pattern of domestic abuse. And we know that's been a problem all over
the nation and particularly in Arkansas, says
be a person may not use deadly force, physical force in self-defense. If the person knows that he can, he or she can avoid the necessity of using deadly physical force by retreating. However, a person is not required to retreat. If the person is one, unable
to come retreat with complete safety. So if you can't get away, you don't
have to retreat. Two, in the
person's dwelling or on the curtilage, that area surrounding the house, this
property, surrounding the person's dwelling and was not the original aggressor. Okay? So, you know, I said before, you absolutely have the right to defend, self-defend
at your house. If you have a party over at your house, and in Arkansas we got open carry and I guess those that,
how do I put it? Because I don't want to offend anyone in the room today. That's not my intent. But if
you have friends and your friends like guns and you know your friends and you use guns and you carry guns and you have a party and you know
your friend is going to come with a gun. You're going to have
Speaker 165
57:56
your gun. You might have a gun party. Everybody wear
holsters and dress up, you know, with your different types of paraphernalia to carry your weapon. I mean, I was over in Fort Worth
this last September or September 2019, they even had a fashion show to
model how you wear your guns and the holsters that
you can strap on yourself and where you can strap on and all kinds of stuff. I was really surprised about that. But anyway, I mean, it's a fashionable kind of thing. And some people get off to that. So if you're at that party at your house, you invite your friends over and you have your weapons all around you and exhibit thing and you're serving alcohol too and maybe you as the host are the hostess maybe you have a too a little bit too much
and maybe you are the aggressor the initial aggressor at your home And your friend feels threatened because you've gone so far as to even pull your weapon on your friend. And ultimately, maybe your friend feels like he has to defend himself at your own house that you invited him to and shoot you dead. So in that instance, I think that's
what that part of the section of the
code is talking about. And then third part, a law enforcement officer, you don't have to retreat if a law enforcement officer or a person assisting at the direction of a law enforcement officer. So of course, we want to help our law enforcement.
And if they call on us to assist and we're able to assist and provide help and support and save the life of the law enforcement officer, we want to
do that because the law enforcement is to protect
and serve. Then it says, too, and the statue isn't long, actually, so don't think I'm going to sit up here all day
and out and Senator Clark, I'm sure you won't let me, Mr. Chair. But it says, with complete safety, this is where you may not use the
deadly force, physical, deadly physical force and self-defense if you know that you can avoid it by retreating. Okay. And two, with complete safety by surrendering possession of property to a person claiming a lawful right to possession of the property. And so I don't think Mr. Senator Ballinger, your bill even dealt with that part of it.
Let's see. To be sure. 6071. Yeah, you took that out, too. So so that's
accepted here. But under our current law, if you could, with complete safety, by surrendering the possession of property to a person claiming a lawful right to the possession of the property.
So say you took somebody's property over, you took it over, and they wanted it back. They claim a greater right. Well, now we are striking that from our law. And then it goes on to talk and explain curtilage means the land adjoining and surrounding your residential and habitation for residential purposes. And it explains what domestic abuse means. And then it goes into physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or the infliction of fear of imminent physical harm, bodily injury, or assault between family or household members.
And then any sexual conduct between family or household members, whether minors or adults, that constitutes a crime under the laws of Arkansas. So we strike. Well, I don't think he struck that part. No, you kept that part in. OK, so that's not an issue.
But that's our present law. It gives us a right to defend ourselves. And only a duty to retreat kicks in unless you're at your house defending yourself and your family against serious bodily injury, deadly force. or if you are helping a law enforcement officer or you're, but if you're unable
and you're unable to retreat, okay, safely. And so the question
becomes to me, is it better to avoid killing someone
if you know you can get away from them? Or would
you just want to take the opportunity because you have a gun and somebody
might be threatening you not necessarily with a gun. They might just be yelling at you I'm going to shoot you and you don't see no gun. But because you have this reasonable belief
that they might have a gun on them. They could be packing something somewhere. Maybe it's behind them. But they got their hands up. And
you say you're in your car. You're a pretty good distance from them and maybe even they're intoxicated. Maybe they're
just talking all out their head. But still, they said those magical words to you and it angered you and you have your gun. And it might be a little bitty person compared to you. It could be somebody of very minor stature. somebody you know
you can just blow at them and they fall over but
you got a gun and they said the magic words and so pop you
just gonna shoot them and sometimes you know I'm from Pine Bluff and I was gonna mention where I'm from and my district is district 25
I told you that And that's parts of six counties in southeast Arkansas.
And I guess outside of Pulaski County, we probably have the biggest homicide rate in the state of Arkansas. And
it's not like I'm glad to say that. Certainly not proud of it. I pray every day
for the people in my district. My district and my city where I live, Pine Bluff, largely black, like me.
And it breaks my heart to see black-on-black crime. Breaks my heart to see a young black man, young black girl, shot
dead. We got more drugs in our community than you. ever want to think about.
And I asked myself, I grew up there. I was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I grew up
there. And I have never, ever seen it like it is now.
When I was a little girl growing up there, we had safe communities, good communities. We were proud of how we treated one another. Our neighbors looked out for each other. When you saw someone doing something, misbehaving,
everybody knew everybody. You knew their parents. Teachers knew their parents. We had parental participation. We had activities at our schools.
We trained and developed our people. But those days are gone by. Where I grew up on Barracuse Street in Pine Love, Arkansas, sometime in the 60s, actually in 68, 69, we had a thriving black community down there. And the highway department in the state of Arkansas came through my community like a snake. And all along where we had black businesses, black homes, residential, gone. It's called
the Martha Mitchell Freeway now. My father had an office over there, a law
office. We had a large house over there, beautiful house. And it was an integrated community pretty much. I had some white
neighbors. We all got along. We had black businesses. But my point is this. Our community went down. The decline affected people's behavior, people's ability
to prosper, to be employed, to be self-employed, to have their own business, it went
out the window. We had good schools. And
the state of Arkansas resisted integration
for decades, for decades and we had segregated schools and I guess you know
some people maybe some of you all
here some people in my community think segregated schools were better for my people we didn't have the same kind of schools that you all had we had all your second class kind of stuff We got to use desks, we got to use books that were all written in and all that
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:09:46
kind of stuff. Senator Flowers, what was
the point? Okay, well, I'm just talking about the decline of my community. I'll move on from my decline. But I'm talking
about it in the context of saying to the sponsors of the bill, members of the committee,
that a bill such as Senate Bill 24, it's, I guess, brought to address things that are going on in my
community because I looked at some data that I got from someone in law enforcement. I don't see any homicides
or murders or devs-by-gun violence in Senator Ballinger's community.
I don't see any in your, Senator Stubblefield. I don't see much in your, Senator Johnson. Hardly any in Senator Garner's and a little in Senator Clark. Quite a bit. Well, you have some, but not
like I have in my district. And the same with Senator Hendren. And so I ask myself and
I ask you all to think about it. Think about the fact that we're living in a crisis.
That's a crisis down there where I'm from. OK, we have a pandemic going
on. And the thing about laws, criminal law and this particular law. Senator Flowers,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:11:18
I've exercised a lot of patience with the committee. We
need to wrap it up. OK, give me about five minutes. OK, thank you. The thing about it is, when we talk about a law such as this,
we're speaking to behavior, either the behavior on the part of the victim or behavior on the part of the one who is being protected by this law and being allowed to use deadly force.
OK, so when you talk about behavior, you have to talk about the circumstances of people, whether they're disabled, whether they have some mental challenges,
whether they have some physical challenges, whether they are culturally different from each other. from the
one that uses the deadly force as well as the one that doesn't, if you understand what I'm saying. And I'm not. OK, so I'll finish up. So some decisions
has been made into law
and we are we have our present law. And in speaking to what Senator Ballinger said about finding the best policies. To me, the bill
represents a solution that is grounded in fear that will cause unintended consequences by the fact that you don't know really enough about the person whose behavior you are reasonably believing is causing or threatening imminent deadly force
to you, particularly if they don't even show it. So you might have unintended
consequences. What doors are opened to look at somebody and make that belief
that that person is threatening me? It becomes a solution that allows a private citizen to become the judge, the jury, and the executioner of somebody's behavior.
that you don't even know or you may not even know. But out there in that public space or wherever that you file yourself in and these
six exceptions that where you have to have to prove that you have no duty to retreat, the location is lawful, you go someplace and you become the judge, the jury, and the executioner, and contrast that with
who would be involved. And like Senator Hendren said, I agree.
And like you said, Senator Ballinger, I don't have particular statistics that I can just rattle off. I could have had some. I was kind of surprised that it came so soon. I didn't expect
the agenda item to be Senate Bill 24 today. You've got about
60 seconds, Senator Flowers. Okay. Bear with me, Chair. But
my solution, it's to correct some of these behavioral issues that I find in my
communities. And I suppose that you are trying to direct these policies toward so that
my solution would be to engage law enforcement immediately when situations
arise, if there is any possibility to do that. And
give law enforcement the training and the tools they need to protect and to serve and to keep
people safe and alive as opposed to being killed
by deadly force. Our law enforcement needs tools. Our law enforcement needs training and we expect them to have training. And
what we're saying in Senate Bill 24, we're letting the private citizen, without training, just go out there. He becomes
a judge, judge, judge, jury, and executioner. We don't need no courts. We don't need no law enforcement. We've got
stand your ground. That is not the way that I think we should go in trying to find a solution. I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair and members
of the committee. I wanted to end though if you will allow me one minute I wanted to say just mention to you because this has been difficult for me but like I said I know you got the votes and it's going to go out of here you know so I wanted to talk to you Gary
Senator Stubblefield you brought up yesterday the Bible or Monday or Tuesday Bible up there at the chamber I have a family Bible too and I copied this out of my family Bible, and I just wanted to share this with you, that in 1883, the Howard County riots, my great-grandfather died July 1883. My
father wrote this inscription in the Bible.
His name was Alonzo William Flowers. He was killed by unknown persons, and his ears were cut
off for souvenirs. My grandfather, Alonzo William Flowers, he was born a couple
of days later, August 4th, 1883. Posses, militia, they
were fighting over land.
My grandfather was in a field that was owned by our family
in Hempstead County. They had a posse. White men. This is documented in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly. I didn't have time to pull the quarterly to bring it. But my grandfather's father was in the field along with his wife, brother, and a 16-year-old black boy sitting up on a post-it fence.
And a land dispute had occurred between some other men, black men and a white man. And it ended up, the white
man had encroached on the black man's land. He didn't think
the black man should have the land, so fight ensued, particularly after the white man got mad and assaulted the black man's daughter in a field.
So the black man was killed, and my grandfather's father was there with his brother-in-law and this young boy, preparing a coffin, a wooden coffin, for the dead black man, shot by these people. They were in the field. He was engaged in his work, looking forward to his son's birth, and the posse came, unknown
white men came through, just shot. Shot the 16-year-old. They say in the article like it was a bird sitting on a fence. Shot
my grandfather's father and shot his brother-in-law. But you know, we
serve in my family and my father, this came out of his Bible, I serve a mighty God. So what we do
here, we do. We have choices. We have a limited number of
days on earth. No matter how we live this earth, whether we're standing our ground,
or we die of complications from COVID, or we
live that three score and ten. And if we're lucky or very blessed, maybe 80 years, maybe more. But there will be something after this life on earth, and I'm looking forward to that.
I thank you, committee, for your time
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:20:46
and your indulgence. Senator Flowers, I have one question. OK, you expressed concern in the past about stand your ground and your son. What state does your son
live in? I'm not disclosing that. Why
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:20:58
do you want to know that? Because I know what state he lives in. Well, please, it's a stand your ground
Speaker 171
1:21:03
as Senator Hickey said the other day, personal.
Don't mess with my son now. OK, I was just going to mess with my son. I'm not
Speaker 93
1:21:10
messing with your son. OK, thank you.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:21:13
Any other questions? He just lives in a stand your ground state.
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
1:21:16
Okay. Senator Stubblefield. Thanks, Senator Flowers. I'm sorry for what you had to endure in your family. But I can assure you that no one lives outside the consequences of their actions that they commit here on this earth. Sooner or later, either now or in the next life, they will answer for those. But if you were mayor of Pine Bluff, what would you do to improve all these situations
that you described as far as the decline in crime? I mean, are any of those situations related to fatherless homes, to drugs? How many other factors contribute to the decline in Pine Bluff, Arkansas? Let me put it
this way, Senator Stubblefield, and I appreciate that question. Because
that decline, the appearance of fatherless homes and all that, all
of that is a result
of the legislature finding these best
policies, good and better policies. Think about it. Wait
a minute, Gary. You asked me a question. Now,
I haven't always, and the
people that look like me haven't always been able to come up here and serve in the Arkansas legislature, okay? Now there was a period of time, even when my great-grandfather was killed, 1883, we
had black legislators. But about 1870-something, no more. Until 1965 or so.
So we've never been in the—at the table
to try to find these solutions. And even since I've been here, I have to be honest with you. You know, I've had help from some of you all, and I appreciate it, on some of the things that I propose. But for the most part, whether
it be Democrat or Republican, I don't get no kind of consideration
for the ideas that I have for solutions to my community, okay? And so I say it lies with us at this seat in Little Rock, at the Capitol. You know, let me be a part of making the
solutions to what needs to happen in my community,
how to reintegrate, have ex-felons reenter.
We sit up here, we make laws, and we have laws where certain people, if you ain't got no money to buy some food, let me tell you something. I have seen little kids in stores don't have no food and whether it's because the mama been neglected or whatever. The fact is, what are you going to do if you don't have no food? And I ain't talking just black kids, white kids too. I've practiced law for 38 years. And since 1991, when I came back to Palm Bluff, I've represented black and white.
And I'm telling you, it's about poverty, it's about the
legislature making laws that keep people from moving up. You have been warned.
love you all. The Bible says love your friends, love your enemies.
Chair
Unverified
1:25:25
I love you. Senator Garner, you're recognized? Yes. No, ma'am. I was just
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
1:25:29
saying I think that question is sufficiently answered. I think there's a lot of people in the queue to speak today, and if possible, we can move on to either of the questions or other part of the agenda.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:25:44
You are correct. Senator Garner. Witnesses, you will need to keep it very succinct. or you're going to think I'm a jerk. My patience has met its full extent.
Mr. Chair, I'm going to excuse myself for a minute to take some relief. I'll be right back. We
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:26:10
have no one signed up to speak for us, so I have a Tamara B.
Tamara Bakes
Unverified
1:26:29
Would you please introduce yourself for the record? Hello, my name is Tamara Bakes. I am a representative of the Rock AR Vote, just an organization just here to pretty much just to represent the community of color, just to come in, just to share experiences on why this bill should not be passed and what's at stake if this bill is passed.
I'm a little nervous, but thank you all for allowing me to come in and just
Speaker 195
1:27:09
to share. Justice Sherry, so statistics constantly shows that stand your ground laws do not
Tamara Bakes
Unverified
1:27:20
have a positive effect on communities anywhere rather than opposite resulting in increased homicides and inconsistent application of well-established laws.
Speaker 195
1:27:29
The stand your ground laws result in a
Tamara Bakes
Unverified
1:27:33
bypass of established judicial system placing very important decisions in the hands of inappropriate authorities, a determination in the field just claiming a justified shooting should never occur. Our
Speaker 195
1:27:45
existing criminal justice system is designed to better protect all citizens. I hope this is not what we would like to do. So just to give an example, if a shooter invokes the stand-your-ground defense, police can
determine whether to make an arrest when they arrive on scene, or if they do not arrest the suspect, then the suspect appears before a judge who determines whether the stand your ground applies to the case. If this does, the prosecutor then decides whether to go to court. So the stand your ground assigns substantial and inappropriate discretion to authorities at various levels, which leads to inconsistent application of laws and accountability for
actions. This is not good for anyone. And so I ask that you all just truly consider, not only myself, but just the people who look like me, that this bill should not be passed. Because at the end of the day, if you don't step foot in a community that you're not familiar with you know you would just just use it as your judgment like oh hey you know i don't like this person the way this world is going now you know everyone is already temperament everyone has
just a lot of things going on in their head so you don't know what this bill like the consequences this bill can actually lead to so i just ask that you all just rethink and reconsider but also just don't you know let this bill pass just because you're the only one sitting at the table like there are people like myself you know cousins they don't know what's going on at the capitol and it's my duty to come up here and and i'm not just trying to get emotional but
i have students who attend philander smith college shorter college arkansas baptist they don't know what goes on at the Capitol because they feel threatened. Like, they feel, and not just to say threatened, but they just feel that they don't belong here. So I was just taking it upon myself to come here just to share what I feel, just my personal opinion and just ask you all, like, if you want to make some laws, bring people to the table that it's going to affect the most.
Like, stop making laws that people aren't at the table who it's going to affect. So that's all that I ask, you know. Start going into the community. Just step into the community. Ask them, like, hey, you know, find some type of common ground with them. And that's all I ask because just making non-common-sense laws, you know, it affects the community of color and black and brown communities the most. And so I just ask you all just to reconsider. Again, you know, think about it.
Like, think. Like, think before you act. I mean, we all have choices and consequences, but just think. So that's all
Tamara Bakes
Unverified
1:30:46
I just really have to say because I don't want to get the rambling. Senator Garner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
1:30:53
don't really have a question more than a statement. I'm supportive of this law, and I understand what you said, and I appreciate you coming
to Capitol and take part in it. But if you would like myself and other legislators to be part of that process and have discussions, I would be very honored if you take my contact information after this.
I'd love to come speak at the college. I'd love to come to any group you want to. I'd love to be part of the process. I'm on Facebook and all of that. You can contact me on there. Obviously, if I don't have a conflict, I'll try to make it. And I do agree with you that no matter what you pass, you need to consider all sides. You need to sit down and hear voices. And what I found out is if you sit down and talk to folks, you've got a lot more in common than you have disagreements with. So thank you so much for coming today.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:31:38
Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Bates? Was it Bates? Sir? Was the last name Bates?
Yes, sir. Ms. Bates, I appreciate you being here today. I appreciate you having the courage to come. And again, I appreciate the process that citizens can come and testify. You decided that this would
Speaker 195
1:32:00
be harmful in some way. Mm-hmm. On what authority? Well,
Tamara Bakes
Unverified
1:32:04
so just check this out. All right. You know, I moved to Arkansas back in 2011. to attend Philander
Speaker 195
1:32:13
Smith College and for me not knowing really about like just firearms is just
like I've you know my grandfather back at home in Tennessee like they have firearms they carry firearms but when you get here on your own not knowing like what you know what to do like if there's a firearm in possession like you have to learn the laws of the state that you're in to carry a firearm or whatever um for me i just think if this bill like i said if it's passed there should be um some layman terms broken down for people like because the language of bills of
just laws is out of the roof people if you the third grade education or not just to use the third grade education, but you have to really understand what is being translated in these bills. And so, you know, it could be harmful, like, just for people who don't understand, like, the law. And it's not to say that they, you have to fault them for that, but just giving them
an opportunity to really learn, or not learn a lot, but breaking it down where they can understand it to, maybe they can go get them a firearm, but you just... But
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:33:43
Ms. Bates, you cited that this law would be harmful, and I've received lots of emails that said this law would be harmful, and so when facts are stated, I always look for the authority for those facts and so I'm asking if you have any facts if you have any studies
if you have anything to back up this yeah I do I actually
Speaker 195
1:34:38
All right, so just with the stand your ground, like, laws, like, just associated with the
increase of, like, firearm injuries resulting in, like, people having to visit the emergency room or just to go to, like, the hospitalizations, like, there are no studies, like, and I'm to be honest with you like just statisticals of giving you numbers i don't have that but what i am saying is that if you have this law being put into place and someone like let's just use common sense if somebody get into it with someone on the highway and a person may drive somebody off the
road because road rage is real and you all know everybody had road rage but my question
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:35:26
was 34 states 15 years do you have specific studies that show that it causes harm to any community you don't have to I
Speaker 202
1:35:36
mean what I'm saying is it's common sense like anything can cause harm to a community to a black and
Speaker 195
1:35:46
brown if we're trying to get specifically you know
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:35:49
unless we have a vote immediately I will introduce studies that show just the opposite. Well, can you, like, share with me? Because what I was just sharing with you, Senator Clark— Well, at the public time, I will. You're the witness right now, and so I was asking you. And, again, I very much appreciate you coming, and I want to be respectful. But this is a process where you're the witness and I ask questions. So I just wanted to know, because I feel like some witness will have those,
and when they do, but you don't. Yeah, I don't. And like I shared with you, you
Speaker 195
1:36:25
know, this is just me as a concerned citizen coming to share. No, and I very much appreciate that because if I believed all the
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:36:34
propaganda that people were getting out there, I would believe the same thing you do. And so I'm
a person who researches down and I would very much like to set the record straight as to what the facts are And especially as to what's happened in Florida, because I really researched that.
And you'll be surprised to find out that their crime rate is down 46 percent since 2005. Yeah. They passed stand your ground because that's not what anybody's saying. Wouldn't that be neat if your crime rate was down 46 percent? Yeah. You know, for the result of that,
Speaker 196
1:37:09
sorry to cut you off, but I had an opportunity. I'm sorry, Ms. Bates, you don't get to cut me off.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:37:16
OK, I'm sorry. Well, I mean, it's okay, but yeah. And assaults, think about that, assaults are down 36%. That's tens of thousands of assaults in Florida every year that are down.
And so as we talk about the effects of this, I see all of this and how it's going to affect people badly, and I thought, well, maybe they're right. But we've got lots of other people to get to. Are there any more questions? Senator
Speaker 36
1:37:44
Ballinger. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you coming and testifying. And you coming, even if you weren't prepared
Chair
Unverified
1:37:51
to share statistics, don't, don't, I mean, of everybody who talks today, your testimony will probably be the most influential.
Just because you came, you're real. Everybody here knows you are, you're not playing the game. You're coming just sharing your story and you're open. So of everybody's testimony today, yours will probably be the most, most impacting. I mean, I don't know if it's going to change, it won't change
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:38:16
the fate of the bill, but you've touched people's hearts. And Ms. Bates, I would be, as a former youth pastor,
I would love to come and listen where you're in charge, and I'm not, and have a back and
forth, which we don't have at this committee.
That's understandable. But thank you so much for
Speaker 200
1:38:35
coming. All right, and one more thing that I'm going to leave you along. Um, so, and I'm going to, I'm going
Speaker 195
1:38:45
privilege, okay? All right, one thing I do know, um, because I had an opportunity to sit and just talk to Trayvon Martin's mom, um, she, uh, came back to Memphis a few years ago, um, and what she was saying that she had an opportunity to do was to go and sit with the legislators Because before, you know, her son was, you know, murdered, she didn't, she wasn't, you know, she didn't have the knowledge about the bills and the laws.
And so I would recommend if there could be maybe a legislative just community day, y'all go and just share with, you know, the communities who is, you know, not to say who is affecting, but just have a community day. Like, get uncomfortable, go into the communities and really, like, talk to people about what's going on. Like just ask them like, hey, what is your life about? And then you really understand like people and why they do the things that they do
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:39:39
in psychology. So that's it. Wonderful idea. And you
tell your friends that you will find out
that there are probably a majority of us that if we're invited, we'll come. So I'm gonna hold you to it. You can hold me to it. Thank
you, Ms. Fates. Next we have Anthony Allen. Anthony Allen. If Anthony Allen shows up, we'll go to him. Laura Hardy.
Speaker 219
1:40:31
Ms. Hardy, if you will have a seat and introduce yourself and please get to your point, because we have taken
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:40:44
I on? You are. Okay. Okay. Well, as you
Speaker 224
1:40:56
know, my name is Hardy, but it's Laura Cartwright Hardy, and I live downtown.
I am a grandmother of five. I am 65. I have not been out because of COVID, but this is
Speaker 226
1:41:10
important enough that I'm here, so I just wanted to add that. I'm also a volunteer with the Arkansas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Some of you know me well because I hear a lot. I'm here today to urge you to oppose SB 24. It's a dangerous stand-your-ground bill, and it's the same policy that this body rejected two years ago, and that should be clear.
While supporters of this legislation will say the bill is about self-defense, it is not. that, as has been discussed at length before, Arkansas law already provides for the ability for people to defend themselves, and there's
Speaker 224
1:41:53
no evidence the system is not working. Can you hear me okay with my mask? Okay. This bill simply- Ms. Harding, I cannot hear you as,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:42:03
I'm going to be honest and tell you, I cannot hear you nearly as well you are muffled, but- All right, I'll take it off.
Speaker 224
1:42:12
And it makes my nose run, so excuse me. There's no evidence that the laws that we have are not working. This bill simply encourages people to shoot first and ask questions later, and puts black people and other people of color at greater risk of gun violence. Proponents will also tell you how many states have Stand Your Ground, but they won't tell you that the vast majority, 22 of them, passed the law between 2005 and 2011
before we really realized the impacts and consequences of the policy. But we now have evidence and it's clear. Stand your ground increases violence generally, full stop. In Florida, as you all were just talking about, where stand your ground has existed the longest, it's been associated with a 32% increase in firearm homicide rates, and I do have a source. Stand your ground laws are associated with increases in homicide rates, resulting in more than 150 additional gun deaths
in the U.S. each month. Stand Your Ground is inherently racist. When white shooters kill black victims and claim a Stand Your Ground defense, the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable far more frequently than when the victim is white and the shooter black. Stand Your Ground increases violence across communities. These so-called Stand Your Ground laws bring more violence into suburban counties that were previously considered safe.
In fact, in Florida, the Stand Your Ground law has had the most negative impact on neighborhoods that initially had the lowest homicide rates before the law was enacted. Stand Your Ground isn't about self-defense or law-abiding citizens. In fact, Stand Your Ground is often used by those who have already had violent backgrounds. Nearly 60% of people who claim stand-your-ground defenses in Florida have been arrested before. Finally, as anti-government extremism and white supremacist violent rhetoric increases across the country,
just like we saw last week, the need to reject radical policies that would likely embolden extremists and vigilantes has never been more evident. There's no evidence that these laws prevent crime. But there's lots of evidence that these laws complicate the investigative work of law enforcement and the charging decisions of prosecutors. And that is why prosecutors and law enforcement in our state have opposed this policy before. For all of these reasons, we ask that this committee reject, we being the group I'm affiliated with, SB24 and promote responsible gun ownership in our state.
And that is what I have prepared.
Speaker 228
1:45:10
And if you'd like some sources, I can
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:45:21
give them to you. Committee? I'll go.
You said that were evidence on blacks shooting whites versus whites shooting blacks.
Speaker 226
1:45:40
What did you have to say there? Well, I'm not sure which one you're talking about, but when white shooters killed black victims- That they were treated differently. The, when white shooters kill black people and claim a stand your ground defense, that
Speaker 224
1:46:01
part, the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable far more frequently than when the victim is white and the shooter black. That is from the Urban Institute's article,
Justifiable Homicide and Stand Your Ground Laws, an Analysis of FBI Supplementary Homicide Report Data. Are you familiar with that study? I have not read it, at least recently. Last time, this was such, so hastily called that I haven't done as much work as I did two years ago when I read, well, and four
Speaker 228
1:46:33
years ago, when I read everything out there. So maybe. Okay.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:46:41
Well, somebody did me the favor of sending it to me last night. Good. And so I have read it, if I can find it. There's, get away from the Tribune to that particular study. First of all,
you're aware that it's not an actual study of cases, but it's a number study.
Mm-hmm. Okay. And I will take you to page 12. As noted earlier, it is possible that this finding of racial disparity is not associated with any conscious or unconscious racial animus in the justice system. If the facts of white-on-black homicides differ from the facts associated with black-on-white homicides that one routinely occurs as part of self-defense and the other as part of a street crime, then there is no animus.
The data here cannot completely address this problem because the setting of the incident cannot be observed. Thus, the analyst is at risk due to omitted variable bias where the lack of a data element leads to a spurious conclusion. But none of the articles that are written that cite this study say that at all. They all act as if there's some kind of conclusive study here, and it's the only one. And having read the whole thing and studied the whole thing, and I'm a numbers guy, there's a bunch of numbers crunching here, but there's nothing that says anything like that.
Now, the Tampa Tribune said there was a 74% versus 59%, but they came back also and did not go into any studies and said that actually that it came back that an equal number of people and that whites that killed blacks versus blacks killed whites were justifiable. and that the reason the Tribune also said the paragraph that's left out of theirs is that, let me find it.
The paper noted that the discrepancy, it was 73 to 59 percent. The paper noted that the discrepancy was due in part to the fact that black shooting victims were more likely to be armed in the process of committing a crime when shot. And so there was not just an even 73 versus 59. There were extenuating circumstances. And so if you're actually going to do a study, you have to go down and look at the cases. And so there's actually not been any study that shows any racial disparity in how this law has been applied,
except for the fact that some of the most ardent defenders of the law have been black defense attorneys because their clients in Florida use this law twice as much and are 8% more effectively 8% more
than white clients do. Those are the facts. I
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:50:06
dispute it, but those are the numbers.
Speaker 223
1:50:11
Well, I don't have anything in front of me. Like I said, I had very
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:50:18
little preparation time to go around. And I'm surprised that even the NRA doesn't, because I went back, I mean, I was curious after seeing all this Florida, Florida, Florida, and their murder rate got worse, and crime got worse. And so I just looked at Florida crime rates, 1960 to 2019. And so I went down to two, I went down to 2005. And of course I compared, you know, you would think that would be the
logical thing to do would be to compare 2005 and 2019. And so I compared Florida for 2005 and 2019 and I compared Arkansas for 2005 and 2019. In 2005, Florida's crime rate was there were 838, 16,965 reported crimes for 17,768 and 191 people. That's 47,217 crimes per 1 million people. In 2005, Arkansas's crime rate was 127,584 crimes
for 2,775,708 people, or 45,964 crimes per 1 million people. In 2005, Florida's crime rate was 2.7% higher than Arkansas's crime rate. In 2019, Florida's crime rate was 542,116 crimes for 21,477,737 people, or 25,240 crimes for one million people. Florida's crime rate dropped 46.6%
from 2005 to 2019. In 2019, Arkansas's crime rate was 103,893 crimes for 3,017,804 people, or 34,427 crimes for one million people. Arkansas's crime rate also dropped by 25.1% from 2005 to 2019. That's about half the rate that Florida's crime rate dropped. In 2019, Arkansas's crime rate's no longer 2.7% lower than Arkansas's, it's 36, than Florida's,
it's 36.4% higher than Florida's. In 2019, the more important point, Florida's violent crime rate was down 36.4% since 2005. Arkansas's violent crime rate is down 10.6% and 54.5% higher than Florida's. I don't think being like Florida is the worst thing that we could do. Based on that data, do you?
We have a difference of opinion on that. Well, we can have a difference of opinion, but yours, I think, are not
Speaker 224
1:53:09
what you want to say. I don't have the numbers to throw back at you. I'm not a numbers person, although I have read plenty of studies.
Speaker 228
1:53:18
I'm also a person who lives in this neighborhood, and I walk my dog to the Capitol on a regular basis, And I will tell you that we can hardly come here anymore on weekends, especially because there are armed men milling about.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:53:33
So we should want to get our crime rate down like
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
1:53:38
Florida. Senator Hendren. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The only point I'll make is, as an engineer, I'm a bit of a numbers guy also. And that's the biggest mishmash of numbers that are irrelevant that I've heard in a while. I mean, for instance, overall crime rate has nothing to do when you're talking about the specific impact of a piece of legislation on a specific type of crime. And so to compare those two things and try to draw assumptions from that, I think is a reach. And just despite the fact, again, I just want to tell you I appreciate the numbers.
And if we could stick to numbers that are relevant to what actually the impact of the legislation is. Because even when you talk about violent crime, there are so many things that are a part of violent crime that have nothing to
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:54:25
do with stand your ground. And so, Senator Hendren, you would say that those that are against this numbers are relevant, but the crime rate numbers that
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
1:54:33
dropped are not relevant. No, I would say, as an engineer, as I'm looking at studies to try to determine impact, I look at studies that are focused on the impact I'm trying to measure.
What we heard was overall generic studies based on a state's overall crime rate. And while that has relevance in some discussions, I don't find it too relevant
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:54:58
in this one. No, that wasn't a study, Senator Hendren.
And that was just the numbers from the states. The others were supposed studies. Senator Garner. Thank you, Mr.
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
1:55:12
Chairman. So studies, reports, things like this. The United States Civil Rights Commission,
after the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, commissioned a report to study any disproportionate effects of race when it comes to standing on ground laws. This report was started in earnest in 2014, with multiple transcripts and commission meetings, and it was released February 2020. Let me rephrase that. It actually wasn't released. What they did, instead of releasing a report that their staff has spent years in reporting, recording, analyzing,
they buried it. You don't have to find my word for it. Look at Commissioner who spoke of this in his letter about the actual report. Now, why would a government agency spend years studying sensitive and specific issues like stand your ground with your federal tax dollars going to support that and then bury it if it showed that there was a disparity between race relations when it came to stand your ground? Let me describe it as the commissioner, Gail Hirat, did.
No one would claim that the results of the staff's empirical study concludes, resolves any controversy over standing-ground laws, or even Florida's standing-ground law. But they are useful for what they do not show. The most passionate opponents of standing-ground laws appear to have believed that the empiric evidence would show that African Americans were harmed by this law, but it turns out things were not so clear. The evidence of discrimination against African Americans or even Rachel Dispref Grebyski's impact is absent from the report. Yes, it's true that a disproportionate number of those killed in Florida cases
incorrectly or correctly by standing ground law were invoked by African Americans. But it's also true that a similarly disproportionate number of those for whom the law was invoked to protect them were African Americans. African Americans appear to be disproportionately affected on both sides. So, ma'am, I want to ask you a question. If this law went into effect, and tomorrow, let's say we have a violent police officer who attacked an African-American, as we've seen in some of the worst cases across the country.
If we see white-owned black crime, where a white person attacks a black person, and they use Stand Your Ground to protect themselves, are you saying to that African-American person that they shouldn't have that right to
Speaker 237
1:57:43
protect themselves in that situation? I don't
Speaker 228
1:57:46
really understand the purpose of that question or what you're asking. If Stand Your Ground was enacted, everyone would have an equal right to use it.
I just don't want it to be an option because we've already got very
Speaker 223
1:58:02
strong self-defense laws. We have the Castle Doctrine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think she answered my question sufficiently. Senator Stubblefield,
Speaker 238
1:58:08
I'm sorry I missed you. You're good. I'm going to read to you a quote, ma'am,
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
1:58:14
and you tell me if you agree with it or not. This was written by a lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps. He said, if violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it.
The felon does not fear the police. He does not fear either the judge
Speaker 182
1:58:35
nor the jury. Therefore, what he must
Speaker 232
1:58:40
be taught to fear is his victim. Do you agree with that? No, I don't, because
Speaker 228
1:58:48
I think people should not approach each other in fear, and I think we have hired law enforcement officers, and that's part of the problem. We have a lifestyle of fear, I guess, that is being worsened and fomented by certain groups,
Speaker 224
1:59:10
and people who want to pass laws that we don't need. And that's the wrong way to live. I don't approach life that way, and I would prefer that other people didn't approach life that way. If people fear each other, you've heard the old expression, if all you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, I mean, or something like that. No, I don't agree. I do not. Sorry. That's all I have, Mr.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:59:40
Seeing no other questions, Ms. Hardy, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm
Speaker 219
1:59:53
going to call on Jen Morgan. Thank you.
Speaker 243
2:00:09
I'm going to be brief as possible because I know everybody's tired and I'm wondering if Tim Loggins should come and sit next to me because I'm going to be very brief and then he can take over and some of the things that
Speaker 245
2:00:19
I was going to say he probably is going to cover. So Mr.
Speaker 243
2:00:24
Loggins, Mr. Chair committee, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to speak.
Yeah, if you will both identify yourselves. Okay. I'm Jan Morgan. I am the president of 2A Women. We are the fastest-growing national organization of Second Amendment advocates who are women. We have a chapter in every state in America, and we are pushing over half a million members. I am an NRA-certified firearms instructor. I am an NRA-certified range safety officer, a USCCA-certified firearms instructor, and an Arkansas State Police-certified firearms instructor. I am here today. I'm in an awkward position because I certainly applaud. I am here to applaud Senator Ballinger for his efforts to advance the Second Amendment.
I know he's been working hard on that, and I applaud him for that. I am just wanting to express a few issues. What I'm here to do is not kill the bill. I'm here to ask you respectfully to tweak the bill just a little, just a few words here and there, and I would be happy and 2A women would be happy. And I wanted to just share those with you very quickly. One of them is on page 15, and it's the phrase lawfully present. And Senator Ballinger is correct.
We do have a number of stand-your-ground laws in so many states, and they've been extremely effective, and I am so excited about the potential of having one in Arkansas. But what I am asking of you today is the same thing that 2A women is going to be asking state legislators nationally. And Senator Rollinger has corrected the words lawfully present when I discussed this with him behind the scenes by phone. Lawfully present is utilized in a number of stand your ground laws across America. And I have studied the laws across America.
And he is correcting up to this point that has not been a major issue. And I cannot cite you any examples where it has been an issue. But, as you very well know, we are facing an unprecedented attack from the federal level because we have a new incoming president and vice president and, unfortunately, the Democrat-controlled House and Senate with an agenda that they have clearly stated is to enact unconstitutional gun control laws on the people of this country. And so, with that in mind, what I'm asking you to do today is just—
Speaker 247
2:02:45
Hold on, just a second. Okay. What's your point of order? You're
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:02:49
getting way off the bill. Senator Flowers, I don't think
Speaker 251
2:02:55
she is. I think she is when she starts talking about what the Democrats
Speaker 243
2:03:02
are going to do in Washington, D.C. Okay. So, moving forward. I am concerned it is the role of our state government to be the barrier between the abusive arm of a federal government. and knowing that we have a massive onslaught of gun control laws coming our way,
because we've already seen them. They've already started drafting them. Some of them have already been presented. I just want us to be as secure as possible and make this wall between our state citizens and the federal government as strong as possible. And so when you use the words lawfully present, understand that what is lawful today in America may not be lawful a month from now, two months from now, three months from now, what guns you're allowed to carry, how many rounds in your magazine you're allowed to carry. So I'm just asking respectfully that we look at those words lawfully present,
because I feel like in the future we may have to change those. And those are mentioned on page 2, line 15, and also on page 10, is lawfully present. And I think Tim will elaborate on that a little more in a few moments. And then, of course, the last page of this bill is a concern to me, line 20. I want you to listen carefully to what we're saying. The justification for using physical force or deadly physical force against another person to protect a pregnant woman's unborn child
is not available if the use of the physical force or deadly physical force for protection was used by a person other than the pregnant woman. So, but on the first page, it says that we can protect a third party. In Arkansas, if I'm present in a situation and another person in my presence is facing an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death, in Arkansas, I am allowed to use my firearm to defend that innocent life. But now, unless I'm wrong, and please correct me if I
have misunderstood this, it says that the use of physical force or deadly physical force for protection was used by a person other than the pregnant woman. So I can't protect a pregnant woman, but I can protect any other woman who is in my presence. I'm just gravely concerned about that because how am I supposed to know if a woman is pregnant? Other than me, I mean, I was massively pregnant. Everybody could tell, but there are a lot of women out there when they are pregnant. You can't even see. They don't even show as late as four, five, six months. And if I use my gun to
defend another woman's life who clearly can't defend herself, if it turns out she's pregnant, that it gives an overzealous lawyer a loophole. And I know we're really nitpicking here, but I just, I know how, because I have students who have faced situations like this, where the law is nitpicked and one or two words can actually mean the difference. And so I'm just respectfully requesting that we take a look at this and shore it up just a little bit in a couple of places, and I would be very pleased to stand in bold support
of Stand Your Ground. And once again, Senator Ballinger, thank you so much for
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:06:03
your efforts on this front. Thank you. Let's go on to Mr. Loggins, and
Speaker 253
2:06:09
then we'll take questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Senators. My name is Tim Loggins, if you're not familiar with me. I am with the organization known as Gun Owners of Arkansas. I retired from the state of Arkansas, Arkansas Department of Corrections, with 28 years and one month. In that former life, I was a SWAT team commander, emergency preparedness coordinator from 2002 until my retirement in 2015.
I was an instructor on use of force and trained hundreds and possibly thousands of officers with the department and other law enforcement agencies on use of force. I was also a defensive tactics instructor. I was also a range master, a chemical agents instructor, less lethal instructor, close quarter combat instructor. Was fortunate enough to participate in the world SWAT competition in 2008, the only correctional team ever invited. We placed 13th in the world that year.
I was actually deployed to probably maybe less than 500 actual uses of force over my career. More importantly, I wrote the Department of Corrections Use of Force Policy, which was based upon this statute 606 and 607 at the time of my retirement. And was responsible for teaching officers how to stay within the guidelines of the law as it exists. So I'm intimately familiar with 52606 and 52607 as written
and have some knowledge about what the words mean and what they don't mean. And I appreciate y'all for allowing me to participate in this process that is so important to our representative government. Like Ms. Morgan, I stand here today in reluctant opposition to this bill. Even as I say, Senator Ballinger, I appreciate you starting this conversation and bringing this important need to light.
And yes, it is a need. The young lady from Philander Smith College made a very important point, and I'm sorry I don't have any notes to go off of, but she was talking about how the general public doesn't understand the law, don't know what it says, don't know what these changes will mean, and it's confusing. And I'm going to say this. Arkansas has a pretty good self-defense law in 606 and 607. That standard of duty to retreat in complete safety is a pretty high standard. With that said, most people in Arkansas don't know what the law is currently.
I hear time and time again that I can shoot a trespasser at my home, but in public I must run. Neither of those statements are true. As Senator Ballinger pointed out in his testimony, the real standard is, was the force reasonable? Were you facing a threat? Were you in fear for your life? And was your response proportional and reasonable? Unfortunately, because of words such as in your home in cartilage and duty to retreat, the public is largely confused by what they can and cannot do and what they should and should not do.
I will say this, the ability to retreat is irrelevant to a lethal force incident. And that's something that we need to clarify, in my opinion. If I can truly retreat, I am not facing a deadly threat. So, incomplete safety is a very high standard that almost never comes into play, as Senator Ballinger said. I don't know of anyone that's been prosecuted for not retreating, because if you're truly facing a deadly threat, you can't run anyway. You have no choice but to defend your life.
My opposition to this bill, and I'll cut to the chase, I've had conversations with many of you here. However, as Ms. Morgan stated, lawful presence is a very troubling term for me. What is lawful today can be unlawful tomorrow. Specifically, I want to state that this refers to the criminal trespass statute. Now, I saw the memo that Senator Ballinger passed around about the defense of this bill and said, yes, trespassers would have to retreat.
And I think his assessment was correct in that. The problem is, is when are you trespassing? For instance, if I am a otherwise lawful citizen that is constitutionally caring, as many of you know, no permit is required in Arkansas to carry a weapon. And whether and if I go into a location that has a no gun sign on the door, if I didn't see it by the trespass law, I could potentially be trespassing because trespass law says entering unlawfully or remaining.
Now, law enforcement has typically not cited or arrested anyone unless they refuse to leave. But the statute says or not and. So if I'm an otherwise law-abiding citizen that is faced with a deadly encounter and it's later revealed that I went past a no-gun sign, it could be determined very easily by prosecutors that I was not lawfully present. And therefore, by removing incomplete safety from the current statute, I now have a duty to retreat, which is a scary option for me.
Because what we're doing is confusing citizens and dividing them based upon class and money. And they don't know if they're there lawfully. Many of us can trespass or otherwise be unlawful and not be aware of it. I'll give you an instance that will bring this point home. A friend of mine in Jonesboro was recently detained at the embassy suites at Arkansas State University. He was at a business meeting. That's the day the governor was there, by the way. I don't know if any of y'all attended that or not.
He had a business meeting not related to the governor being there. During the course of his meeting at the embassy suites hotel, one of the businessmen he was meeting with said, hey, I need to step outside and take a break and smoke a cigarette. My friend stepped outside with him to smoke a cigarette and continue their business meeting, and he was detained by the campus police of Arkansas State University because he was carrying a weapon. Now, the controversy in question comes into play, was he on hotel property in their parking lot or was, since it is built up on Arkansas State University property, was he in violation of 573-119 carrying a weapon without an enhanced carry permit as described in 573-322?
I will tell you the outcome of it, he was detained for two hours, his concealed handgun carry license was pulled, and it was recommended that he face felony charges, simply for having a weapon in a hotel parking lot. Now, I want to go further with this scenario. If at some point during his stay at that hotel, he had been assaulted, or if he had saw someone that was being assaulted with a deadly threat, and he had intervened and used his weapon, by the very definition and the actions of the campus police,
he would have not been lawfully present, and he would have had a duty to retreat and not be able to defend himself. And while that's so important, by removing incomplete safety from the statute, as Senator Ballinger has done in 607, the only thing that matters is you have no duty to retreat if you meet conditions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, number one, being lawfully present, Which means since incomplete safety is removed, if you don't meet any one of those six criteria, you now have a duty to retreat, which also means that you must proactively show the prosecutor that you attempted to retreat or why you could not before you can claim the privilege of the statute.
That's very concerning to me. Now, you're going to say, Mr. Loggins, do you know many cases where this has happened? Do we really want citizens to face this potential next year, two years down the road, three years down the road where because they're lawful or unlawful presence is what's determining was the force justified or needed instead of was their response reasonable and did they fear for their life? I do appreciate, Senator, the change to number four. That was also a concern for our organization. I think that clarified the law a great deal.
and what you meant and intended is now very clear, and I appreciate that change. As Ms. Morgan said, we also have an issue with page four where we remove the ability of another person to defend the unborn child of a pregnant mother. I know Arkansas is one of the most pro-life states in the country, a fact that I'm pretty proud of. But to me, this is reducing the value of that child's life.
Ms. Morgan stated that we had the ability to defend the mother if she's being attacked, but we've removed that child as a person that I'm capable of defending. What if the mother cannot? What if the mother isn't armed? I said, now I'm going to have to show prosecutors that I was defending the mother's life and not the unborn baby's life. That's troubling, and I'm not sure why we're doing that. My final concern would be on 5-2-6-0-6, the recommended amendments that Senator Ballinger has introduced. Currently under Arkansas 5-2-6-0-6, there is no mention of duty to retreat.
There are no qualifiers under which you must do anything. Now, there are some qualifiers that says the force is justified or not, such as you're not provoking, and he covered those, and he's correct on that. But currently in 6-0-6, there is zero duty to retreat, zero. And now we have made the ability to defend ourselves against non-deadly force more restrictive, I'm afraid. Now, he's correct that it refers to 52607 and says you may not use deadly force except as provided in 52607.
He's correct in that. But 52607 says you have a duty to retreat if you can do so in complete safety. So right now, there is zero verbiage mentioning duty to retreat in 606. and I'm not sure how we're helping our citizens know when and when they cannot use force to defend themselves by inserting it in that statute. I appreciate the committee's time, and I'd be happy
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:16:31
to answer any questions. Senator Flowers, you're recognized. I just have one question.
So you're suggesting that the criteria that the Prosecutors Association has supports in here in terms of when a person is not required to retreat before using deadly force, these six factors. Are you suggesting that a business that posts a sign that says no weapons allowed on the premises
does not have the right to do that? And wouldn't that be unlawful presence if you did appear
at that premise, that business premise, with a weapon? Thank you, Senator, for the question. And yes, ma'am,
Speaker 253
2:17:32
I agree. And I defend the right of a property owner to decide who gets to carry a weapon and who does not. I'm not in any way saying that someone should ignore a business's wishes.
Well, but isn't that lawful present at the location violated when you come with a gun
Speaker 253
2:17:51
where it's posted? It is possible to bypass a no-gun sign without being aware of it. I've done that myself unintentionally. The location of the no-gun sign is inconspicuous. I was unaware that that property—the example I used with my friend at ASU Jonesboro Embassy Suites, He had a concealed carry permit and thought he was on hotel property. As it turned out, he was on ASU property. He was not in felony possession, although technically he was, but it certainly wasn't his intention.
Because he was on the college property, he was in felony possession of a weapon for violating 573-119. Now, the issue comes that I have a problem with is I'm in no way encouraging anyone to trespass. I'm not encouraging that, and I believe absolutely my gun rights do not trump a business owner's rights to post no weapons. The problem is whenever a citizen, through no fault of their own unknowingly, is now in a location that makes them unlawful, we are saying that they must retreat and they've lost their right to defend themselves.
That's extremely troubling to me. My right
Speaker 259
2:18:54
comes from God to defend myself and should not be dependent upon a statute saying
anything about where I'm at. Well, my point is that a property
owner, if they post a sign in the law, I believe that we set up here and passed a few sessions ago, said specifically how conspicuous the sign must be at a business premise. And if somebody tells you when you come into their residential property or the curtilage that I don't want you with your gun, some people know.
And the point is this, too. I think what you all both are saying is how people can be ignorant of the facts that are present in the environment. And it goes, it just speaks to, you talk about all the training that you've
had. Law enforcement has training. People that have deadly weapons ought to have training.
is my opinion. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. If I could respond very
Speaker 253
2:20:12
briefly, Mr. Chair. We're in agreement on the property rights of the individual, Senator. I in no way am encouraging anyone to violate a property owner's rights. Now, as far as last session passing a law saying it must be conspicuous, actually, when we passed 573-322, it no longer requires signage, just the business owner's desire so they don't have to have a sign to say, hey, you've got a
weapon to leave my property. And I think that is an improvement, by the way, because my gun rights do not trump a property owner's rights to have someone there under what conditions they choose. But a conspicuous sign is no longer necessary, just the owner's wishes is what's necessary under current statute. Senator Ballinger, you're
Chair
Unverified
2:21:04
just want i mean it you know um the uh previous individual who testified
um she did did a great job and she made a good point and you reiterated that sometimes language is hard to read and in particular somebody who's not been involved and in the bill process sometimes doesn't understand the bill process and so i'll just ask you if you if you look on page four either one of y'all can do this, page four in line 23, the section that you all are concerned about in the ability to, for a person to protect an unborn child, is that section, line 23 and 24,
Speaker 253
2:21:42
is that underlined? Number 23 is not, Senator. 24 is actually crossed out. So the defense of Defending the unborn child by another person has now been made zero.
Chair
Unverified
2:21:55
So let me see. The defense is there. So 23, this language that you guys are concerned about is there. Over here, when you get down to 25, down to 30, that's the exception. So that's the language that would require her to retreat if she could retreat safely.
What that is is this is pointing to the code section. Frankly, it's gone now because we removed it. Now, I would agree that an unborn baby is a person and that you should have the ability to protect that person just as like you would any other person. However, that language that is addressing that, that's previous. In fact, I think Senator Subblefield and I carried that bill. Back then, that was the best that we could do. Maybe we should go further and fix that. But that language there in this section is not being changed.
Speaker 253
2:22:46
Can I respond, Senator, Mr. Chair? I'm somewhat familiar with the bill writing process and the lawmaking process. It says the justification for using physical force or deadly physical force against another person to protect a pregnant woman's unborn child is not available if. Okay, and the condition that is still remaining in your SB 24 is it is not available if the use of the physical force or deadly physical force for protection was used by a person other than the pregnant woman.
Speaker 56
2:23:19
Correct, but that's not underlined, right? That
Speaker 253
2:23:22
is current language. Current language. And my point being, whenever you struck out the next section, which starts at line 25 and going forward, you removed another person's ability to defend a number of child. No, no, because that is another exception. So
Chair
Unverified
2:23:36
what we've done here, and I get that you're saying that the bill doesn't go far enough and that there's other things. I get it. Like, you know, I would probably agree that it would be nice if it went further. However, what you're talking about is the current state of the law is not what you, I mean, what we've done with the next section we've taken out, we've taken out another exception.
Speaker 253
2:23:58
What you've taken out is the reference to 52607, which is our current deadly force law. So whenever you say is not allowed, if it's another person, and then the part you took out, except as under 5-2-6-0-7. So what you're saying is under 5-2-6-0-7 currently in this statute that you're amending, 5-2-6-15, what you're saying is you're removing my ability as a third person that was justified previously under 5-2-6-0-7 exception. That's my reading. And this is
Speaker 97
2:24:28
a great illustration of how sometimes this
Chair
Unverified
2:24:31
stuff is, I wish there were a better way to do it.
It can be confusing. But the important thing to do is we're talking about exceptions. This is when it's not allowed, right? And so that is saying in this situation, it's not allowed. The inability to, now obviously, and let me say this. One thing that you said that I think is you can still protect the woman, right? But not an unborn child. Not the unborn child. That's right. And so there's a gap. There's a hole in our Arkansas code, clearly, that should be addressed by someone, someone, sometime, and probably should happen this session, right, to be able to protect an unborn baby.
But guess what? There's also 100 other ones. In fact, let me say this. Within gun laws in the state of Arkansas, there's 100 other ones that need to be addressed, right? But this bill doesn't do that, right? This bill is only dealing with the duty to retreat, and that's what we're dealing with in the other section. So, I mean, I don't want to, I don't blame you, other than, in fact, I have addressed this with several of you guys to get it cleared up before, but I don't blame you for not understanding it, but that's what it is, is this is that you're misreading the code section.
You're right that there is a limitation on ability of another person to protect the unborn baby, but that doesn't, it's not in this bill.
Speaker 268
2:25:49
That's in the code already. We just haven't addressed it in
Speaker 253
2:25:54
this bill. Right? Unfortunately, Senator, I understand everything you're telling me, and I believe that current statute allows better protection of the unborn child than removing this language. Now, I understand I can still defend the mother. I'm just worried the message that striking that language is sending,
Speaker 264
2:26:13
and I still have the ability to defend
Speaker 267
2:26:17
the mother, but I worry about that language. The language is an exception. You would agree with that, right? I would, yes. So we are striking an exception to that
Speaker 253
2:26:29
defense, correct? The exception being the reference 52607. Mr. Chair, if you please, I would ask one thing, the language of lawfully present, I would be able to support this bill completely if we could change that to right to be there or some other verbiage that wasn't dependent upon what a statute is
are what this body, the governor, a president, a United States Congress, lawful changes from depending upon who's in charge, who's in power, and day-to-day activities of the legislature. My rights never change. My rights come from God. And I would ask that the committee consider looking at that change in the language simply because we don't know what tomorrow brings. We don't know what's going to happen down the road from this body, from the next body.
As Ms. Morgan said, whoever's in charge or authority can change lawful presence. And
Speaker 272
2:27:27
that's just very troubling to me. Senator Johnson. Senator Ballinger, I wish you would
Speaker 267
2:27:33
address, I mean, no, you know, I just want some clarity, okay? And about this, you know, duty retreat. And I would discuss with Tim about the complete retreat. And if Senator Ballinger would discuss that, when that was put into code and how it already exists in that common defense, if you would, please, and that might get clarity on number one there.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:28:05
Yes, Senator Johnson, if I could, before he does that. I
think this may help clear things up, and then we'll ask Senator Ballinger to answer your question. This lawfully present in a location has been one of the things that's been on page 2, line 15, has been one of the things that has been presented to me as a problem. And Ms. Morgan, I think you pointed out in your testimony
that while that was a problem that that was in many laws in other states and to my surprise as I studied Florida in depth into the wee hours of the morning because everybody was pointing to Florida to my surprise since they kicked all this off the prosecutors there used those exact words So it must be in the law there, lawfully present in the location. So y'all are aware that in the Florida law that it's there, lawfully present in the location.
Can I answer, Mr. Chair? And again, I very much understand your objection, Mr. Loggins, and I'm sympathetic to it. But you do understand that it is in the Florida law. My answer would be that Florida is a permitted
Speaker 253
2:29:29
state where you have to have a permit to carry a weapon as opposed to Arkansas and 15 other states that are constitutional carry with no permit being required. So I understand that lawful in Florida doesn't mean the same thing as
Speaker 188
2:29:43
lawful in Arkansas. That's my concern. Okay.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:29:46
And we also understand the difference between good and perfect and being able to take a step.
But Senator Ballinger, if you could
Chair
Unverified
2:30:02
answer Senator Johnson's question. Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate the forbearance and leeway. So going back to ancient common law, the right of self-defense, right? It's been changed by code through the years. In general, it's a question of reasonableness and whether the force matched the force, matched the threat. And so the question of whether or not you can retreat and the issue of complete safety,
that's something that was added to the code that was negotiated. It was an effort, I think, more than anything to get us to move from being a nonstandard ground state to a stand your ground state. That language was put in. However, the very nature of the defense of self-defense is you never lose it, right? So the only way that you have an obligation to retreat is if you can retreat in complete safety. because you don't lose that right of self-defense. So if you cannot retreat in complete safety, you cannot retreat. You still retain the right of self-defense no matter where you're at.
So that language is great. I'm, you know, better than not having it in there. However, that's how it would be interpreted anyway. So with or without that language, the question is not whether or not, you know, it's a possibility you could retreat. The question is whether or not you could retreat safely. And so it almost is irrelevant whether that language is in there or not. Mr. Chair, can
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:31:22
I respond briefly? I do have a point and
a question for the Senator. I appreciate it. If a member wants you to, because that question was from Senator Johnson to Senator Ballinger.
So if any one of them asks for you to, you can't otherwise know. Senator Johnson. Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson's pitching it to you, Mr. Loggins. My only
Speaker 253
2:31:52
question, Senator Ballinger, is I understand the reference to common law. And when we're talking about common law, we're actually talking about Blackstone and commentaries. And the three divisions of homicide that Blackstone made, ranging from one is felonious assault and it being necessary and mandatory.
And then you get all the way down to trial by combat where you've got mutual combatants that are engaged. And then you have a duty to retreat. That's where Blackstone first mentioned duty to retreat. So under common law, the only time that even in 17th century England, I think you would agree, the only time that even 17th century England had a duty to retreat was whenever they were in mutual combat by agreement that rose to the level of a lethal encounter. So I know this is quibbling and we're talking about a lot of stuff that people are going to say,
well, what are they even talking about? But the point I'm trying to make is under common law, there is no duty to retreat, except under very specific circumstances. Now, we've taken that and translated it over the years to a castle doctrine, to a right to stand your ground, to all sorts of things that really don't apply to common law as written in Blackstone. And that was my point. Thank you, Mr.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:33:06
Chair. Okay. Any other questions for these witnesses?
If not, thank you all for being here. Committee. Senate meets at 1. It is 12-18. We have five more people signed up to speak. What's your pleasure? Motion for immediate consideration.
I have a motion for immediate consideration from Senator Garner. Does that take a second?
No. Does not take a second. All for the, and there's no discussion. All for the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Here, motion is carried. So we will now vote. And because we had a motion for immediate consideration, there is no discussion on the bill. We are voting to whether to pass
Speaker 93
2:34:06
out a committee, Senate Bill 24, as amended, SB 24.
Well, somebody has to make the motion to do pass as amended. A
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:34:20
motion do pass as amended. Motion do pass as amended. And a
second from Senator Johnson. All for the motions to pass SB24 as amended. Signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? No. Motion carried. Senator Flowers asks for a roll call and remind everybody of the rules since
it's early in the session. It takes one member
Speaker 8
2:34:55
to ask for a roll call. Senator Hendren. Senator Hendren votes no. Senator Stubblefield. Senator Stubblefield votes yes. Senator Rice? Yes. Senator Rice votes yes. Senator Blake Johnson? Yes. Senator Blake Johnson votes yes. Senator Garner? Yes. Senator Garner votes yes. Senator Ballinger? Yes. Senator Ballinger votes yes. Senator Flowers? No.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
2:35:32
Senator Flowers votes no. The SB24 carries with the vote of 5 to 2. Senator Ballinger, you have
passed your bill. We have no more business today. Meeting is adjourned. You
Agenda
Call to Order
SB24 B. Ballinger CONCERNING THE DEFENSE OF A PERSON WITH THE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE OR DEADLY PHYSICAL FORCE.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — JUDICIARY COMMITTEE - SENATE AND HOUSE, Jan 13, 2021 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
Speaker 8
Speaker 10
Speaker 14
Speaker 18
Speaker 35
Speaker 36
Speaker 41
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 44
Speaker 46
Senator Stephanie Flowers Chair
Unverified
Speaker 56
Speaker 58
Speaker 66
Speaker 69
Daniel Shue
Unverified
Speaker 76
Matt Harriman
Unverified
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
Speaker 55
Speaker 97
Speaker 98
Speaker 91
Speaker 105
Speaker 107
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
Speaker 110
Speaker 119
Speaker 124
Speaker 128
Speaker 130
Speaker 144
Speaker 145
Speaker 148
Speaker 21
Speaker 156
Speaker 165
Speaker 171
Speaker 93
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
Speaker 186
Tamara Bakes
Unverified
Speaker 195
Speaker 200
Speaker 202
Speaker 196
Speaker 212
Speaker 219
Speaker 220
Speaker 224
Speaker 226
Speaker 228
Speaker 223
Speaker 237
Speaker 238
Speaker 182
Speaker 232
Speaker 243
Speaker 245
Speaker 247
Speaker 251
Speaker 253
Speaker 259
Speaker 268
Speaker 264
Speaker 267
Speaker 272
Speaker 188