Automated calls stump justice
Posted on Friday, May 19, 2006
Jerry Bibb hates telemarketers. So when he started getting automated calls about Justice Donald Corbin’s re-election campaign to the Arkansas Supreme Court, he called the justice’s office to complain.
Only problem was, Corbin says he didn’t authorize the call.
“He called telling me that he didn’t appreciate receiving these calls,” Corbin said in a telephone interview Thursday. “That he had received more than one, that he had a large family, and that now he and his family were going to vote against me unless I called and apologized to him.”
The justice added: “I called this morning.”
Corbin now is scrambling to find out who is behind the calls and alert authorities — not to mention voters — that he isn’t to blame.
The justice faces Maumelle District Judge Roger Harrod in Tuesday’s primary election for the court’s Position 2. Corbin said he doesn’t know who is making the calls and doesn’t think Harrod is responsible.
Harrod said he wasn’t behind the calls.
Corbin said he’s asked Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe, U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Bud Cummins, and several county prosecutors to investigate.
“I’m hoping that the proper authorities will investigate this. I want criminal actions brought against them,” Corbin said. “I don’t know what the penalties are, but I’ll be for taking the maximum.”
Under a federal telemarketing law, “artificial or pre-recorded telephone messages must state, at the beginning, the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call,” according to a description of the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act on the Web site of the Federal Communications Commission.
Corbin’s campaign treasurer, Gregory Graham, an attorney in Little Rock, drew on that description when he wrote a letter to the Arkansas Ethics Commission denying any involvement in the calls. Graham’s letters states that the calls “do not seem to be within the requirements” of the state law.
“It’s apparent when you do a search on the Internet that almost anyone can initiate one of these telephone solicitations,” Graham said.
Bibb, a retiree living in the Baxter County town of Lakeview, said he received calls on Tuesday and Wednesday. The call he received Wednesday, which was recorded on his answering machine, carried a man’s voice saying:
“Hi, this is Gene. You should know that Don Corbin, one of our Arkansas Supreme Court justices, has been a supporter of property owners’ rights. Don Corbin ruled in favor of Arkansas property owners, and limited the ability of the government to take away land. I hope you find this information about Don Corbin, and his support for private property rights, useful. Thanks.”
Corbin said a second call, this one with a woman’s voice, says that the justice has ruled to keep criminals behind bars, and that he is a family man with six children.
The justice has five children. A sixth died two years ago, Corbin said.
At a time when politicians regularly campaign against crime and against government seizure of private property, the calls are hardly a stinging criticism.
But the justice says he’s afraid that the calls will sour voters and lead to accusations that he has violated the state’s code of judicial conduct.
That code, in part, prohibits judicial candidates from making “statements that commit or appear to commit the candidate with respect to cases, controversies or issues that are likely to come before the court.”
Corbin said he’s notified the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, which enforces the judicial code, that he isn’t behind the phone calls.
Similar calls were made regarding Jim Hannah’s successful campaign in 2004 to become chief justice. Like Corbin, Hannah asked the attorney general to investigate, said Matt DeCample, a spokesman for the attorney general.
Hannah said he, too, had contacted the attorney general, the U. S. attorney and local prosecutors, but that he never learned who was behind the calls.
“When I’d get home at night, my message machine would be absolutely full of irate people,” Hannah said. “One lady said she had gotten 27 calls in a day.”
DeCample said the attorney general’s office doesn’t know enough about the calls to determine if any state laws were broken.
“We don’t know what is or is not happening yet with these calls,” he said. “Until we know that, we don’t know what the legal ramifications are.”
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
