Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen, shown protesting at the Governor’s Mansion in April, said on his blog that he was portraying a crucified Jesus and that his hat covered “a black leather bound King James Version of the Bible, the book that my parents taught me to read and love as a child.”

On the first day of a special session called to deal with health care, a state senator on Monday repeated his call for the House to impeach a Pulaski County circuit judge who participated in a recent death-penalty protest.

Other lawmakers interviewed said they'd rather wait for a judicial discipline panel to do its work first.

Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, said the House should bring an article of impeachment against Judge Wendell Griffen this week.

Garner said the judge engaged in "gross misconduct" when Griffen effectively halted recent executions by issuing a temporary restraining order and then hours later lay strapped to a cot in front of the Governor's Mansion during a death-penalty protest.

The Arkansas Supreme Court later overturned the order halting the executions, and it stripped Griffen of his authority to preside over any death-penalty cases. The high court's decision also has led to an ethics investigation by the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission. Ultimately, the state executed four of eight inmates scheduled to die in April.

In interviews with a half-dozen lawmakers in the House, none said they wanted to immediately move to impeach Griffen. Instead, they said they wanted the existing process for reprimanding judges to play out before making a decision.

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The House has never brought an article of impeachment under the current state constitution -- written in 1874 -- and rules do not exist to govern how lawmakers would go about doing so. The potential charge -- gross misconduct -- also is not defined in the state constitution.

"We're developing our case and there's no reason we have to jump up and do something right now," said Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindsville. "My hope is -- and I think most people's hope is -- the judicial discipline commission handles their business, takes care of this within the judiciary and the Legislature never has the chance."

Likewise, Rep. Charlotte Douglas, R-Alma, said, "What we've discovered is we don't have is a clear route of impeachment through the House, so we're going to lay those rules out, and then, at that point, if what he has done meets the standard we have put forth, then I'm for looking at it."

Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, said: "It's good for us to wait and see what comes out. We don't want to influence them and what they're doing. We want to be fair and impartial."

Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, said, "I've certainly indicated I would be for an impeachment process, but I think at this point judicial discipline is looking at it."

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Michael John Gray, D-Augusta, said it's best if the Legislature doesn't interfere in a separate branch of government.

"There is a process in place within the judicial branch where a review is already being done. This is about the separation of powers, and I think at some point we need to understand where our roles are. The judicial branch and the legal profession have measures in place to address issues like this, and I think that's where this is addressed."

Should the House impeach someone, that person is then tried in the Senate, which also acts as a jury. In a letter dated April 17, Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, urged senators to be cautious in their comments about Griffen, so that in the event of a trial, the public wouldn't question the Senate's ability to be fair.

Griffen has said the Supreme Court justices wrongly sanctioned him on April 17 in response to allegations of misconduct.

He said last week that the high court's decision to act on a complaint by the attorney general without giving Griffen the opportunity to tell his version of events violates the state Code of Judicial Conduct. As a result, Griffen filed his own complaint with the judicial commission.

Regarding his appearance at the protest, Griffen said at his news conference last week, "I lay on a cot in solidarity with a dead Jesus."

Griffen also rejected the idea that he must subjugate his constitutional right to freely express his religious beliefs to his duties as a judge. He can be both a devout Christian and uphold his legal obligations, Griffen told reporters.

Mike Laux, a lawyer representing the judge, in a statement Monday that: "Judge Griffen followed Arkansas law when he issued the Temporary Restraining Order on April 14, 2017 in the McKesson case. He attended a prayer vigil with other members of New Millennium Church on that date as pastor of that congregation and a follower of Jesus.

"The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States fully protects Judge Griffen, and all other persons, in their right to hold religious beliefs, exercise free speech, and assemble peacefully. Sen. Garner, like Judge Griffen and all other elected officials, has a sworn duty to support the Constitution of the United States, which includes the First Amendment."

But Garner said Griffen has repeatedly shown bias through statements on his personal blog that pertain to police, white people and the Little Rock school system.

In addition to the protest outside the Governor's Mansion, Griffen wrote a blog post on April 10 titled "Religious Faith and Homicidal Motives" that criticized Arkansas' planned executions, calling them a "series of homicides."

"He can't be trusted to hear a trial fairly," Garner said. "I appreciate the Supreme Court's action of taking him off any death-penalty cases. But listen, he hears all sorts of cases, so the sooner we can remove him from office, the better it is for the people of Arkansas."

Outspoken jurist

Griffen frequently voices his opinions, and questions of conflicts of interest have been raised on previous occasions regarding his court.

In 2006, his outspokenness on a variety of topics put him on a collision course with the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission when its ethics investigators claimed that by espousing a position on the different subjects, he could be violating his judicial duty to appear fair and impartial.

Over the course of a year between 2005 and 2006, Griffen denounced the federal government's Hurricane Katrina response as racially biased, criticized the nomination of John Roberts for chief justice of the United States, endorsed a state referendum to raise the minimum wage, spoken out against the Iraq War and condemned attacks on gays and foreigners.

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His conflict with commission included his own lawsuit against it, although it was dismissed.

He ultimately won in September 2007, when the commissioners acknowledged that Griffen was engaging in the legal and protected exercise of his right to free speech, citing precedents by the state and federal supreme courts.

The commission also stated that there is nothing in the canons of the Arkansas Rules of Judicial Conduct that bar a judge from speaking out, and that the commission does not have the authority to punish a judge who does so.

Garner said the commission had the chance to censure Griffen and failed.

"We have the constitutional power to do this -- to bar him from serving in any other capacity moving forward -- and that is why I think we should send a message to the people of Arkansas that we will not let a radical out-of-touch judge have that much power -- have that much bias," he said. "Making those kind of statements in unacceptable."

Information for this article was contributed by Emily Walkenhorst, John Lynch and Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 05/02/2017