Trial lawyer in LR charged with DWI

Gibson ends talk of AG candidacy

Jesse Gibson, the president-elect of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association who had been mulling a campaign for attorney general, was arrested Thursday night on a drunken-driving charge.

According to booking information at the Pulaski County jail, Gibson, 43, was charged with a first-offense DWI, careless driving and refusal to submit to a chemical test.

He is set for plea and arraignment on Dec. 27, according to online court records.

According to a Little Rock police arrest report at the jail, officers responded to an accident about 11:30 p.m. Thursday near Gibson’s home on Edgewood Road.

There, officers wrote, they found Gibson unsteady on his feet and smelling of intoxicants. Gibson refused a field sobriety test, they said.

Gibson told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette earlier this week that he was considering challenging Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge in her re-election bid next year but had yet to make up his mind. Gibson is a Democrat.

In a text message Friday afternoon, Gibson said he

would not be a candidate for political office in 2018.

“I hope you can appreciate that I consider this a private matter that my wife and I are working through,” Gibson said, adding later, “It goes without saying I am deeply sorry for an inconvenience this may have caused the owner of the parked car.”

In addition to being the incoming head of the Trial Lawyers Association, Gibson serves on the House of Delegates for the Arkansas Bar Association.

His private firm in Little Rock, Gibson Law Firm, specializes in personal injury, civil litigation and medical negligence cases, according to its website.

In 2006, Gibson ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the state House seat in Little Rock eventually won by Kathy Webb, who went on to serve three terms.

No other Democrats have announced plans to run for attorney general.

Stark Ligon, the head of the Arkansas judiciary’s Office of the Committee on Professional Conduct, said his office typically does not receive or investigate complaints about lawyers who get charged with a first-offense DWI. The office handles discipline of attorneys.