From the Arkansas Advocate:
The legal dispute between the Arkansas Board of Corrections and Attorney General Tim Griffin deepened this week, even as the board acted to try to resolve it.
Griffin filed a lawsuit against the board in 2023, after the board hired attorney Abtin Mehdizadegan, saying the attorney general would have a conflict of interest representing the board in its own lawsuit against the governor.
The board voted Monday to send Griffin a letter reasserting its right to hire its own attorney, and some members said the move was an effort to settle that lawsuit.
Griffin didn’t comment specifically on the letter, but Mehdizadegan’s comments during the meeting triggered a vehement reaction from Griffin.
Mehdizadegan told the prison board he’d made preliminary contact with Griffin’s office about a possible resolution to the lawsuit since the state Supreme Court sent it back to a lower court for further consideration last month.
He said he had not made any settlement offer to the attorney general because the board had not authorized him to do so.
Griffin disputed that, saying Mehdizadegan “failed to accurately describe his actions.”
“The Board of Corrections’ illegally retained counsel called my office last week, and while he prefaced his call acknowledging that he was not authorized to negotiate terms of a settlement, he proceeded to lay out terms for settlements in both lawsuits,” Griffin said in a statement.
The board is suing the governor over two state laws it says usurp its constitutional authority by making the secretary of corrections and directors of two corrections divisions answerable to the governor instead of the board. The state Supreme Court on June 5 dismissed Griffin’s appeal of a lower court’s temporary halt to those laws, meaning the case remains unresolved.
Griffin’s lawsuit against the board alleges it violated the state Freedom of Information Act by meeting improperly in executive session before hiring Mehdizadegan. The lawsuit also claims the board violated the FOIA by not providing him requested documents.
“In any event,” Griffin said in his statement, “the illegally retained counsel’s suggested settlement terms would require me to excuse the Board’s violations and effectively stop defending the Governor against litigation filed by illegally retained counsel,” Griffin said.
The issues at stake in both cases ultimately require the Supreme Court’s involvement, he said.
The letter the board approved sending Monday also says it wishes to continue having Mehdizadegan and his firm, Hall Booth Smith, represent it and would object to any effort to designate a different law firm.
The board voted 4-0 with two abstentions to send the letter. McCastlain and Grant Hodges abstained.
In another split vote Monday, the board voted 4-1 to approve its official response to a critical state audit report. McCastlain was the lone no vote.
Among other things, the audit determined that the Board of Corrections doesn’t have any power to appropriate funds. Mehdizadegan has not yet been paid for his work, which as of February totaled more than $230,000, according to the audit.
Watson and board Chairman Benny Magness said they felt the full board needed to accept the response and to affirm that they had reviewed the audit report. The board then voted unanimously to acknowledge receipt of the audit report.
