Judge rejects collusive settlement agreement between Sanders and corrections officials

A Pulaski County circuit judge has rejected a proposed settlement between the Arkansas Board of Corrections and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The settlement would have rendered Amendment 33 to the Arkansas Constitution moot by allowing the governor to hire and fire top prison officials.

In a scathing, eight-page decision on Friday, Circuit Judge Patti James called the proposed settlement “the first step down the slippery slope towards the degradation of our great democracy,” “an unjustifiable attempt to usurp the power of the people” and “an attempt to undermine this court and authority of the judiciary.”

The proposed settlement agreement sought to undo an October 2025 ruling by James that two laws passed by the Legislature in 2023 — Acts 185 and 659 — were unconstitutional. The Board of Corrections sued, arguing those acts improperly transferred day-to-day control of the state’s corrections divisions to the governor, in violation of Amendment 33, and James agreed, ruling in favor of the board.

That October ruling followed a preliminary injunction that James entered against the state’s enforcement of Acts 185 and 659 in January 2024. The state appealed James’ initial injunction to the Arkansas Supreme Court. In June 2025, a 5-2 majority Supreme Court sided with corrections officials and denied the state’s request to have the preliminary injunction dissolved. James’ October 2025 order, making the injunction permanent, followed, and the state appealed. 

While that appeal was pending, multiple things happened. First, due to the expiration of a number of terms on the corrections board, Sanders was able to replace some of the board members who had opposed Acts 185 and 659 and had supported the initial lawsuit, giving her a majority of loyalists on the board who backed her position.

Around that same time, Attorney General Tim Griffin, whose office represents the state in the ongoing litigation, approached the new, Sanders-friendly board with a settlement proposal. Contrary to what James had previously ruled, the proposed settlement required the board to say that Acts 185 and 659 are not unconstitutional. The Sanders-aligned majority of the board accepted the proposed settlement in March, and the state dismissed its appeal of James’ October 2025 order and asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to either reverse James’ order or to send the case back to James with instructions to consider the proposed settlement agreement.

In May, the Supreme Court denied the state’s motion to overrule James, but granted their request to send the case back to James’ court for consideration of the settlement. 

Along the way, a current and a now-former board member sought to intervene in the case. Board member Lee Watson and former board chairman Benny Magness asked the court to allow them to take part in the litigation because they opposed the settlement and disagreed that Acts 185 and 659 were constitutional. James granted their request. 

After the Supreme Court sent the case back to James to consider the proposed settlement, she held a hearing on Sept. 2. The state argued at that hearing that the Supreme Court’s order did not leave James any discretion and was essentially an order for her to undo her October 2025 ruling and enter the settlement agreement. Watson and Magness disagreed, arguing that the Supreme Court only required James to consider the parties’ arguments but did not require her to accept any of them.

James agreed with Watson and Magness, and she did not pull any punches in Friday’s ruling. She said nothing in the law had changed since her October 2025 order, and she rejected the parties’ efforts to get around her ruling via private agreement.

“In their joint motion, the parties declare this matter moot because they simply agreed it is,” James wrote. “If only it were that easy. This court permanently enjoined Acts 185 and 659 of 2023 and there has been no enacting or repeal of any statutory scheme relating to the Acts, nor relating to this court’s order.”

James also explicitly rejected the state’s claim that the Supreme Court left her no discretion.

“The argument by the parties appears to be a final effort to convince this court to yield to the parties’ will,” she wrote. “If the Supreme Court of Arkansas intended to leave this court with no discretion, it would have ordered this court to enter the agreed order.”

James also asked rhetorically whether any of the parties had considered that allowing a state entity to simply agree that an unconstitutional law was constitutional would create bad precedent. 

It also appears to this court that the parties have not given much thought or foresight to the legal ramifications and complications that would inevitably arise should this court grant the relief requested in the Joint Motion to Lift Injunctions. Would this necessarily mean any state agency or constitutional board can assemble and agree that specific statutes are constitutional or unconstitutional? Would this new loophole be applicable to private individuals in active litigation? How would this fresh “contract theory” result in the fair and equitable justice the citizens of Arkansas expect from the judiciary?

Calling the parties’ joint motion an “attempt to brand the Arkansas Judiciary obsolete,” James said granting the motion “would result in preposterous and absurd consequences in which this court has enough foresight to prevent.”

By denying the joint motion, James’ October 2025 order, ruling Acts 185 and 659 unconstitutional remains in full effect. Griffin’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the ruling.

The case is styled as Arkansas Board of Corrections, et al., v. Sarah Sanders, et al., 60CV-23-9598.