LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An Arkansas judge on Friday blocked a new law that would take away the Board of Corrections' authority over the state corrections secretary and other top officials, the latest in an escalating feud between the panel and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders over the prison system.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Patricia James granted the board's request for a temporary restraining order the day after the panel filed a lawsuit and suspended Corrections Secretary Joe Profiri with pay.
The board argued that the law violated the state constitution by usurping its authority and giving the governor the power to hire and fire the corrections secretary. Sanders appointed Profiri to the post, and he was confirmed by the panel earlier this year.
The move follows the Sanders administration's plans to move forward with opening hundreds of new temporary prison beds that the administration had not approved. Board members have said opening the temporary beds would jeopardize the safety of inmates and staff.
Arkansas prisons are currently over capacity, with more than 1,600 additional state prisoners being held in county jails.
“If relief is not forthcoming, (the board) will suffer immediate and irreparable harm because Defendants have caused additional beds to be added to inadequate jail facilities,” James wrote. The bill blocked by James would also have given Profiri, not the board, the authority to hire and fire the corrections and community corrections departments.
James set a hearing on the lawsuit for December 28. Attorney General Tim Griffin was reviewing the order and preparing a response, a spokesman said.
The ruling came the same day that Griffin filed a lawsuit against the board, accusing it of violating the state's Freedom of Information Act when it agreed to hire an outside attorney to represent it. Griffin's lawsuit also alleges the board failed to follow the law in its response to an FOI request he sent about the attorney's hiring.
“The Board of Corrections has shown a complete disregard for the law, so I ask the court to intervene to enforce compliance,” Griffin, a Republican, said in a news release.
Abtin Mehdizadegan, the board's attorney, said the panel followed the FOI law and criticized Griffin's lawsuit.
“This seems to me to be political retaliation and despicable weaponization of the attorney general's office to achieve that political retaliation,” Mehdizadegan said.
