Other days
100 YEARS AGO Oct. 15, 1921
■ The Arkansas Natural Gas Company yesterday filed an appeal in Pulaski Circuit Court from the decision handed down October 8 by the Arkansas Railroad Commission, denying the petition for increased rates to consumers, and an established city border rate for this cities of Hot Springs and Little Rock. The case, which was first filed in December 1920, contemplated an increase from 25 to 47½ cents per 1,000 cubic for industrial consumers, and has been hotly contested by the Little Rock Gas and Fuel Company and the Gas Consumers Association, composed of 30 leading industrial users.
50 YEARS AGO Oct. 15, 1971
■ Chancellor Kay L. Matthews today denied a request for a temporary injunction to keep Pulaski County School District from forcing the transfer of some students involved in legal guardianships. However, Matthews also declined to dismiss a suit file by the guardians of two McClellan High School students. He said the question of whether the school board has the authority to force the transfers had not been raised and he would give attorneys for the plaintiffs time to raise it. The Pulaski County School Board voted Tuesday night to disregard guardianships effected since May 31, 1970, for the purpose of pupil assignment. The board said that if a student’s parents are living together, the student would attend the school in the zone where his parents reside regardless of where his guardian might reside or where the student might actually be living.
25 YEARS AGO Oct. 15, 1996
■ The Arkansas Supreme Court agreed Monday that a convicted murderer could have more time to appeal his conviction, in what one justice critically labeled a “flip-flop” of a September ruling. On Sept. 26, the Supreme Court dismissed the case of two Fort Smith men who were charged with second-degree murder because an assistant attorney general failed to file the state’s briefs despite six extensions. The case has been a issue in the race for the U.S. Senate between Attorney General Winston Bryant, a Democrat, and Rep. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark. Assistant Attorney General Clint Miller was forced to resign after he failed to file the state’s briefs despite the extensions. Bryant has apologized for the mistakes and put in place safeguards to prevent any other missed deadlines.
10 YEARS AGO Oct. 15, 2011
■ Over a prosecutor’s vigorous objections, a federal judge on Friday refused to order Alexander “Lex” Martinez, former chief financial officer of the former wholesale foods distributor Affiliated Foods Southwest, to pay any of a $5 million restitution request or sentence him to more than a year in prison. U.S. District Judge Brian Miller imposed a sentence of one year and one day, as well as a $10,000 fine. Tacking an extra day on the sentence is a means of allowing a prisoner to be released a few weeks early if the U.S. Bureau of Prisons determines he followed all rules and is eligible. The privilege isn’t available for sentences of one year or less.