It simplified and clarified the definitions of...
It simplified and clarified the definitions of more than one hundred years of complicated and overlapping crimesIt also eliminated so-called status offenses, which had been condemned by the Supreme CourtA crime requires committing a forbidden act, intentionally or recklessly; just being something society deems undesirable isnt enoughFor example, being a drunk wasnt a crimeNeither was being a homosexual, though it had been before the new code was adopted

Representative Bill Stancil took a lot of heat from the conservative pastors in his hometown of Fort Smith for his vote in favor of the revised criminal codeThey said he had voted to legalize homosexualityStancil was a good man who had been one of Arkansas best high school football coachesHe was a muscular, square-jawed, broken-nosed guy, and subtlety wasnt his strong pointHe couldnt believe he had voted for homosexuality and was determined to rectify his error before the religious right could punish him for it, so he introduced a bill to make homosexual acts a crimeFor good measure, he criminalized bestiality too, causing one of his wittier bay bag chloe colleagues to remark that he obviously didnt have many farmers in his districtStancils bill described in excruciating detail every conceivable variation of both kinds of forbidden intercourseA pervert could read it and escape the urge to buy pornographic material for a whole week

There was no way to beat the bill on a direct voteMoreover, the Supreme Court was a long way from its 2003 decision declaring that consensual homosexual relations are protected by the right to privacy, so getting an opinion from me saying the bill was unconstitutional wasnt an optionThe only possible strategy was to delay the bill to deathIn the House, three young liberals who were great allies of mineKent Rubens, Jody Mahoney, and Richard Maysdecided to offer an interesting amendmentWord got out that something was afoot, and I joined a packed gallery above the House chamber to watch the fireworks go offOne of the guys rose and praised Stancils bill, saying it was about time someone stood up for morality in ArkansasThe only problem, he said, was that the bill was too weak, and he wanted to offer a little amendment to strengthen prada milano itThen, with a straight face, he proposed the addition, making it a Class D felony for any member of the legislature to commit adultery in Little Rock while the legislature was in session

The entire gallery was engulfed in peals of laughterOn the floor, however, the silence was deafeningFor many legislators from small towns, coming to Little Rock for the session was the only fun they hadthe equivalent of two months in ParisThey were not amused, and several of them told the three wise guys theyd never pass another bill unless the amendment was withdrawnThe bill sailed through and was sent to the Senate

We had a better chance to kill it there, because it was assigned to a committee chaired by Nick Wilson, a young senator from Pocahontas who was one of the brightest and most progressive members of the legislatureI thought he might be persuaded to keep the bill bottled up until the legislature adjourned

On the last day of the session, the bill was still in Nicks committee and I was counting the hours until adjournmentI called him about it several times and hung around until I was almost an hour late gucci pantheon in leaving for a speech in Hot SpringsWhen I could finally wait no longer, I called him one last timeHe said they would adjourn in half an hour and the bill was dead, so I leftFifteen minutes later, a powerful senator who favored the bill offered Nick Wilson a new building for the vocational technical school in his district if hed let the bill go throughAs Speaker Tip ONeill used to say, all politics is localNick let the bill go, and it passed easilyA few years later, the present congressman from Little Rock, Vic Snyder, tried to repeal the bill when he was in the state SenateAs far as I know, the law was never enforced, but we had to wait for the 2003 Supreme Court decision to invalidate the law

Another really interesting problem I faced as attorney general was literally a matter of life and deathOne day I got a call from the Arkansas Childrens HospitalIt had just recruited a gifted young surgeon who was being asked to operate on Siamese twins who were joined at the chest, using the same systems to breathe and pump bloodThe systems couldnt support them both much longer, and without surgery to wholesale tiffany separate them, they both would dieThe problem was that the surgery would certainly kill one of themThe hospital wanted an opinion saying that the doctor couldnt be prosecuted for manslaughter for killing the twin who wouldnt survive the surgeryStrictly speaking, I couldnt guarantee him that, because an attorney generals opinion protects the person receiving it from civil suits but not from criminal prosecutionNevertheless, the opinion would be a powerful deterrent to an overzealous prosecutorI gave him an official letter stating my opinion that the certain death of one of the twins to save the life of the other would not be a crimeThe doctor performed the operationBut the other one lived

Most of the work we did was far more conventional than the examples Ive citedFor two years, we worked hard to issue truly well-written opinions, do a good job for the state agencies and with the criminal cases, improve the quality of nursing-home care, and hold down utility rates, including a vigorous effort to keep the cost of a pay-phone call down to a dime, when nearly every other state was raising it to twenty-five chanel logo necklace cen