ASU responds to DeVos’ remarks on free speech

JONESBORO — Arkansas State University says the school is committed to free speech rights after U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos criticized the campus’ free speech policy.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that DeVos mentioned the university at a Philadelphia event Monday while denouncing actions taken by some college administrators regarding free speech. The education secretary noted the case of Arkansas State student Ashlyn

Hoggard who was recruiting on campus last year for conservative group Turning Point USA. Devos said the student was restricted to a “free speech zone” and later removed from campus. She said “we are inundated with stories of administrators and faculty manipulating marketplaces of ideas.”

ASU System General Counsel Brad Phelps says the school’s policies advance free speech rights. Phelps declined to comment further because of a federal lawsuit filed in December over the incident.

Inmate released from prison after judge’s ruling

LITTLE ROCK — An Arkansas man who has been imprisoned since 1992 for robbery and murder convictions has been released after a judge overturned his conviction last month.

A judge ordered John Brown’s release Wednesday after he served 26 years for the 1988 killing and robbery of an elderly woman in Fordyce. The Midwest Innocence Project, which appealed on Brown’s behalf, says Brown’s lawyer at the time was “ineffective and corrupt,” and argued the state withheld potentially exculpatory evidence.

In 2015, Brown’s co-defendant confessed to committing the crimes alone.

In August, U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson vacated Brown’s convictions and said the state had 30 days to either release or retry Brown.

The attorney general’s office is appealing the decision, and Brown could still be retried pending the outcome of the appeal.