UPDATED: Arkansas Supreme Court chief justice harassed court staff, per human resources report

by Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate
March 13, 2025

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 4:25 p.m. on March 13, 2025, to clarify whose emails Justice Hudson filed into evidence in a 2024 lawsuit, and again at 5:05 p.m. to include the Supreme Court’s latest per curiam order and Tom Mars’ motion for Justice Wood to recuse herself from ongoing litigation.

A report made public Thursday asserts that Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Karen Baker harassed judiciary employees on Dec. 4-5, 2024, after she was elected but before she was sworn in as the first elected female chief justice.

“Justice Baker intimidated staff, appears to have targeted female employees of color, indicated an intention to retaliate based on her perception of how employees voted, and indicated an intention to retaliate based on her perception of whether employees were cooperating with Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission’s investigation into her colleague’s conduct,” the report from the Administrative Office of the Courts human resources department states.

Baker’s behavior violated the AOC’s anti-harassment policy, according to the Jan. 10 report. The policy states in part: “Harassment undermines the integrity of the judiciary and violates the standard professional working environment to which employees are entitled… In particular, discrimination based on disability, color, gender, national origin, race, religion, or sex is strictly prohibited.”

AOC Director Marty Sullivan asked Baker on Jan. 13 to stay away from the agency’s offices and not to communicate with his staff, pending the conclusion of a Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission (JDDC) review against her. This disciplinary action is outlined in the report’s conclusion.

“If the perpetrator was under the authority of the AOC, HR would likely recommend termination or other serious disciplinary measures,” the report states. “Nevertheless, the AOC has an obligation to protect employees from further harassment.”

The filing of the report is the latest development in an ongoing dispute between Baker and most of her colleagues since she became chief justice Jan. 1. Previously, five of the other six justices blocked Baker’s attempts to fire 10 judiciary employees, including Sullivan, and appoint three new judges to the JDDC within three days of taking the oath of office. The JDDC investigates complaints about the conduct of judges and the justices.

The five justices stated in their per curiam orders that Baker was acting beyond the scope of her new authority. Baker has repeatedly maintained that state law and the state Constitution give the chief justice the authority to act unilaterally in personnel and appointment matters.

Associate Justice Courtney Hudson did not participate in the orders blocking Baker’s actions. She and Baker also did not participate in a March 6 order requiring Baker to file the HR report with the court by Tuesday nor in a Thursday morning order that allowed the release of a redacted version of the HR report.

Associate Justice Cody Hiland also did not participate in Thursday’s initial order or the following per curiam order reiterating the court’s stance that the HR report should be made public with redactions.

The March 6 order as well as Thursday’s resulted from an administrative civil appeal Baker filed Jan. 23 against Sullivan. In that filing, her attorney, Tom Mars, asked the high court to dismiss Sullivan’s “findings and recommendations” from the human resources investigation.

Five justices said in the March 6 order that Baker’s claim of visiting the Justice Building for “completely legitimate reasons” in December was “impossible” to verify without the HR report. The report submitted Monday was initially sealed because it pertained to allegations that the high court had not ruled on, Supreme Court Clerk Kyle Burton said Tuesday.

Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office, representing Sullivan, asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to deny Baker’s request to keep the document sealed. Monday’s submission included “additional factual allegations or characterizations related to the AOC investigation and report” that did not belong in the filing, according to Griffin’s office.

Mars filed a motion on Wednesday to withdraw Baker’s initial petition to the court. The motion alleges that Sullivan “decided to invent” AOC’s anti-harassment policy “out of whole cloth” shortly before completing the human resources report.

Sullivan declined to comment on the report, and Mars did not comment Thursday afternoon before publication.

Later Thursday afternoon, Mars filed a motion urging Associate Justice Rhonda Wood to recuse herself from the case. He cited Wood’s statement that “Marty Sullivan is the most amazing man on Earth” and that Baker should apologize to Sullivan during a rare public Supreme Court business meeting on Jan. 23, in which Wood and other justices were critical of Baker’s actions since becoming chief justice.

Mars said this indicated bias on Wood’s part, in addition to the fact that Wood was Baker’s opponent for the chief justice position in last year’s election that went to a runoff.

“Human nature being what it is, it would be surprising if Justice Wood did not hold at least somewhat of a grudge,” Mars wrote.

The allegations

The human resources document corroborates reports that Baker entered Sullivan’s office on Dec. 4 when he was not present. She “was observed looking throughout Mr. Sullivan’s office, including the area behind his desk” and later returned with two other people.

Their names are redacted in the document, but surveillance footage obtained via the state’s public records law and reported in December by Arkansas Business showed that Baker’s former law clerk, Department of Commerce Chief of Staff Allison Hatfield, and Hudson were the chief justice-elect’s two companions.

A court employee who saw the trio at Sullivan’s office Dec. 4 “had the distinct impression that the two [others] were purposefully distracting the employee and blocking the view,” the report states.

Baker then visited AOC’s Court Information Systems Division, where she told an employee who didn’t recognize her that the individual must not have voted for her, or voted at all, in November, the report states. The individual was one of two employees who reported feeling harassed by Baker approaching them, and witnesses corroborated their accounts, according to the HR report.

“The employees realized that Justice Baker had spoken only with employees of color and skipped the many white employees,” the report states. “The employees reported feeling targeted by Justice Baker because of the employees’ race.”

Baker also asked another Court Information Systems Division employee for information that the employee did not provide, responding with “That’s all I need to know” when the person hesitated, according to the report.

Court Information Systems Division director Tim Holthoff and deputy director Cecil Davis were among the 10 judiciary employees Baker attempted to fire in January. So was Pete Hollingsworth, chief of the Supreme Court Police Department, which received a complaint from a court employee who saw Baker, Hudson and Hatfield in AOC’s administrative suite, according to the report.

In the Jan. 3 order blocking the firings, Baker and Hudson’s colleagues called the firings “retaliatory.” On Jan. 2, Baker “confronted” Sullivan and Hollingsworth “about their responses to Freedom of Information Act requests involving her,” according to the order. The Court Information Systems Division is also involved in AOC’s responses to FOIA requests.

Baker returned to AOC’s administrative suite Dec. 5 and tried to order one of the employees she approached the previous day to let her into Sullivan’s locked office. The employee “was visibly shaken and appeared to feel humiliated by Justice Baker’s actions toward her,” the report states.

Upon learning another employee had been instructed not to unlock Sullivan’s office, Baker said “things would be changing come January.”

Disputes over JDDC

On Jan. 8, Baker issued an opinion declaring invalid her colleagues’ orders blocking her attempted AOC firings and JDDC appointments. The other justices, with the exception of Hudson, issued a statement saying Baker’s “later-filed dissent” from their two orders “has no legal effect beyond that of a dissenting opinion.”

Baker spent more than an hour fielding questions from the other justices about her behavior in the Jan. 23 Supreme Court business meeting, the same day she filed the civil appeal against Sullivan.

Associate Justice Shawn Womack said at the meeting that the court attempted to make new appointments to JDDC late last year, but the effort was delayed, including by Baker.

Womack asked Baker if she “intentionally” tried to “get control of the commission that was investigating” her as soon as she became chief justice. Baker said she was not the only justice under investigation and did not respond further to the question.

Circuit Judge H.G. Foster of Conway, the judge who swore in Baker as chief justice at midnight on Jan. 1, was one of the three blocked JDDC appointees. Before 12:30 a.m., Baker drew up the appointment orders for Foster and two other judges, one of whom had just retired from the bench. JDDC members are required to be sitting judges.

The human resources report specifies that Baker “indicated an intention to retaliate” against court employees based on whether they were cooperating with a JDDC “investigation into her colleague’s conduct.”

Five justices referred Hudson to the disciplinary panel in September 2024 for “flagrant breaches of confidentiality” after she filed former Chief Justice John Dan Kemp’s emails into evidence in her attempt to block the release of emails between her, Hatfield and others in response to a FOIA request from Arkansas Business. Kemp, Baker’s predecessor, did not run for reelection last year.

Baker wrote in her dissent that the majority had “a fundamental misunderstanding” of the FOIA and had damaged the Supreme Court’s credibility. She made transparency a focus of her successful runoff campaign against Wood.

The JDDC gave notice last week that it will hold a special meeting Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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