Federal court to hear case filed by Goodson

Justice’s defamation suit targets ads, mailers

A defamation suit filed by Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson against the Republican State Leadership Committee for attacks levied in her ongoing re-election campaign was moved to a federal court in Little Rock on Friday.

Goodson originally filed the suit in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Thursday afternoon as part of her latest effort to stop the stream of negative TV and mailer ads.

Goodson faces Department of Human Services attorney David Sterling in a nonpartisan runoff election Nov. 6.

The Republican State Leadership Committee has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in ads critical of Goodson, as well as running TV spots stating that Sterling is aligned with President Donald Trump and Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Sterling has denied any involvement in the the committee’s advertising, though he has not repudiated it.

John Tull, a local attorney and freedom of the press advocate, entered the case on behalf of the committee Friday morning and quickly filed notice that the case was being moved from Pulaski County Circuit Court to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

In his notice, Tull noted that the Republican State Leadership Committee was incorporated in Virginia and headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Reached at his office Friday morning, Tull declined to comment on the pending case.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Billy Roy Wilson and to U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome T. Kearney.

Wilson set a hearing for 2 p.m. Tuesday in his courtroom, said Goodson’s attorney, Lauren Hoover.

The transfer of the case from its original court of jurisdiction — the Pulaski County Circuit Court — came after four judges there recused from hearing Goodson’s case. Those judges were Mary McGowan, Alice Gray, Timothy Fox and Wendell Griffen.

The case had been most recently assigned to Judge Chris Piazza, who ruled in favor of Goodson in a similar lawsuit she filed ahead of the May judicial general election. Goodson filed several lawsuits against Arkansas television stations that had run attack ads featuring similar lines of criticism ahead of the first round of voting in the Supreme Court election.

Those ads, purchased by the Judicial Crisis Network, criticized Goodson over gifts she received — and publicly reported — from campaign donors. Those same claims are repeated in the Republican State Leadership Committee ads.

Both the committee and the Judicial Crisis Network have also claimed that Goodson requested a pay raise of more than $18,000. The pay raise was requested by Chief Justice Dan Kemp for all justices. A raise of $5,905 was approved by a state panel.

Goodson has said she recused from any cases involving those who gave her gifts. Hoover, her attorney, said in a complaint to the court that the committee’s accusations are “false by omission.”

The committee, however, has contended that the ads are truthful.

In her earlier round of lawsuits, Goodson was partially successful. While Piazza ordered the ads off the air in central Arkansas, another judge ruled that blocking the ads would violate free speech and he allowed the advertising to continue in Northwest Arkansas.