The Associated Press
PINE BLUFF, Ark. (AP) -- Attorney General Mike Beebe plans to appeal a judge’s decision dismissing a misdemeanor case against Jefferson County Sheriff Boe Fontaine and a reserve deputy, a spokesman for Beebe said.
The appeal will be filed as a way to clarify the law for all 75 counties, said Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley, the special prosecutor in the case.
Fontaine and Deputy Dane Reed were accused by Jegley of knowing about a gambling house and failing to close it down. The charges were brought last summer after a June 19 raid by the FBI, state police and Jefferson County prosecutors and the arrest of three people at a sports gambling site on U.S. 270 between White Hall and Sheridan.
On Wednesday, Special Judge Russell Rogers of Stuttgart said the state law under which the two were charged is unconstitutional. The 90-year-old law requires sheriffs or deputies to arrest operators of suspected gambling operations as soon as the authorities know of their existence.
Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said Thursday the attorney general’s office would handle the appeal for Jegley.
Chuck Lange, executive director of the Arkansas Sheriffs Association, said he believed Rogers’ decision was the right one.
“I think it (the old law) goes against the Fourth Amendment, and I see this as a first step to get this whole thing straightened out,” Lange said.
Rogers said the state law requires law officers to ignore the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as to probable cause and search and seizures.