A travesty of justice is unfolding in Arkansas, but it’s not too late to stop it.
At 1:12 a.m. on the morning of October 8, 2024, Aaron Spencer and his wife woke up to find their 13-year-old daughter missing from her bed. Spencer’s wife called 911, while Spencer jumped into his car and sped into the night, desperate for any trace of his missing child. He hadn’t gone far when he saw Michael Fosler’s truck, with his daughter inside.
Fosler was no stranger to the Spencers. In July of that year, Fosler allegedly raped Spencer’s daughter, resulting in his indictment on 43 separate charges, including sexual assault of a minor, internet stalking of a child and possession of child pornography. Lonoke County prosecutors handled the case and it ended up on the desk of Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore. It’s a bit unclear who dropped the ball – Lonoke County, Judge Elmore, or some combination of the two – but what we know for sure is that this dangerous child molester was released on a $5,000 bond, with a restraining order to prevent further abuse of Spencer’s daughter. Then came October 8 and neither the deposit nor the contactless order was worth the paper it was printed on.
Aaron Spencer has announced he is running for sheriff in Arkansas, a year after he was arrested for allegedly shooting his teenage daughter’s accused rapist. (Aaron Spencer/Facebook)
Spencer’s actions at that moment were nothing short of heroic. He ran Fosler’s truck off the road, gun in hand, and ordered him to release his daughter. Instead, Fosler fought back, and the fight ended when Spencer emptied his firearm into Fosler. Spencer then rescued his daughter from the truck and called 911.
ARMY VET FATHER BECOMES SHERIFF AS FACED FOR SHOOTING HIS DAUGHTER’S ALLEGED SEXUAL PREDATOR
Spencer should never have been in this situation. He shouldn’t have saved his daughter from a monster. But because locally elected prosecutors and judges failed him, that was the position he was placed in. Amazingly, the prosecutor not only failed to take any responsibility for what had happened; he charged Aaron Spencer with second-degree murder. And wouldn’t you know it, the judge in the case was none other than Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore.
Judge Elmore took immediate action to keep this case hidden from the public, issuing a gag order on anyone who had any connection with the case and preventing them, under penalty of contempt of court, from speaking to the press or public about the case. Gag orders aren’t all that unusual, but this one was so extensive and so intrusive that the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in and declared it unconstitutional, ruling that it was “a prima facie plain, obvious, obvious and gross abuse of discretion and exceeded his authority.”
Judge Elmore was undeterred. Despite the constitutional right that every defendant has to a public trial, she effectively closed the trial to the public, significantly limiting the seats available to the public, the media, and even Spencer’s own defense team. Elmore did this without offering any alternative way to view the process, and without any evidentiary hearing or judicial findings to justify it. For the people of Arkansas, it seemed the solution had been found. The judge who once abandoned Aaron Spencer’s daughter now wanted to make sure his trial was as secretive as she could muster.
Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court intervened again and overturned the judge’s order. But they didn’t stop there. The Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of removing Judge Elmore from the case. The unusual remedy showed how egregious her behavior had become.
Aaron Spencer was accused of killing a man suspected of preying on his daughter. (Lonoke County Detention Center)
This is the first step towards justice, but it should not be the last. The prosecutor should drop this case altogether.
Not that the prosecutor’s behavior thus far has been indicative of good judgment. Statements from prosecutors in this case are not only embarrassing; they should be bothering the people of Arkansas. Prosecutors suggested that Spencer’s angry comments from July — when he discovered his daughter had been raped by Fosler — were somehow evidence of his intentions in October. Never mind that such anger would be the natural reaction of any father. And it doesn’t matter that Spencer didn’t track down and kill Fosler in the weeks or even months that followed; he shot him while saving his daughter from another kidnapping by Fosler.
Prosecutors also suggested that Spencer should have simply called 911 when he saw his daughter in the truck with Fosler. That a father should give up pursuing his daughter’s kidnapper and rapist in the hope that the police can arrive in time to save her is so astonishingly absurd that it boggles the mind that any prosecutor charged with protecting and defending citizens and victims of crime would tolerate this.
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But the removal of Judge Elmore and the associated delay in Spencer’s trial provide an opportunity to end this farce. The local prosecutors should drop this case. The attorney general should decline to defend a conviction in the unlikely event that a jury returns one. And the governor must promise to do everything in her power to pardon Spencer, if that’s what it takes. To do otherwise would be to turn the law on its head and leave everyone in Arkansas at the mercy of the predators who would victimize them and their children.
