Morris S. Arnold - Two Major Arnold Cases

Two Major Arnold Cases

Arnold wrote a 2001 opinion that a life sentence for selling a small amount of crack cocaine constituted "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. "It is unusual for any court to find that a sentence violates the Eighth Amendment," said the attorney J. Thomas Sullivan of Little Rock, a professor of criminal law at UALR's William H. Bowen School of Law. Sullivan represented defendant Grover Henderson before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis. Arnold's decision reversed U.S. District Judge James M. Moody's refusal to dismiss Henderson's 1996 petition for habeas corpus.

As part of another three-judge panel, Judge Arnold declared Arkansas' donor limits on campaign contributions to be "unconstitutionally low." The ruling struck down the state's Initiated Act 1 of 1996 which was passed by two-thirds of those voting on the issue. The initiative sought to limit contributions to $300 per election for state constitutional offices and $100 per election for other state and local races.

Morris declared the limits an infringement on the public's First Amendment right to contribute financially to a candidate of one's choice. The judges also ruled that a provision in the law allowing small-donor Political Action Committees to contribute more per election than other such committees violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.