Karen Baker

Justice Baker has served on the Arkansas Supreme Court since 2011.

Notable Cases:

• Macklin v. Arkansas Department of Human Services (2021): Signed Wood's dissent. The majority held that a circuit court erred by dismissing a mother whose daughter had been found dependent-neglected and placed into foster care Argued that the majority expanded the list of types of medical care that require a court order when a child is in foster care. "The Supreme Court of Arkansas applies the law; we do not make the law. Here, the General Assembly placed only three limits on the type of medical care that requires a court order when a child is in foster care: removal of bodily organs; withholding life-saving or life-sustaining treatment; and amputation. That’s it. Vaccinations were simply not on the list. That was the only issue for the juvenile court to decide. The statute and issue raised were plain and uncomplicated. The juvenile court refused to enter a court order to immunize or not to immunize because the legislature had not assigned it that role. It’s not our job either. The majority today expands the statutory list to include immunizations. Those of us in dissent may agree this might be good policy, and we might even believe the legislature may take that step in the future—but it’s not our role to forecast the legislature’s decisions We cannot take a piece of legislation, decide it’s lousy, and rewrite it. If the statute reflects poor policy, the people of Arkansas, through their elected representatives, must act. I believe the people want us to remain faithful to our judicial role. To paraphrase Justice Scalia, a good justice must be willing to make decisions she does not like and to apply the law regardless. One must begin with the text of the statute and apply principles of statutory construction. That result compels the opposite decision from the majority. What’s more, the majority’s decision violates stare decisis. The majority’s decision is flawed for the following four reasons" (10). 1) Violated courts rules of statutory construction (plain meaning) 2) Grafted the legislative intent of an education statute onto the juvenile code when the original statute was unambiguous 3) Violated stare decisis that one type of statute cannot be applied to another type 4) Majority was "awkward" in the policy making it performed, exempting some vaccines for apparently no reason. "Judges must forgo the desire to error-correct legislation. The majority takes a different path. It leaps over the statute’s plain language, finds no ambiguity, imports legislative intent from a different code section, and then violates stare decisis. This dissent stays rooted in the role of the judiciary as interpreters of the law, not makers of the law" (14).

• Bentonville School District v. Sitton (2022): Signed Kemp's majority opinion. Reversed the circuit court's temporary restraining order prohibiting Bentonville School District from enforcing its mask policy (1). Held that case was not moot because the policy qualified for the exception for "issues that raise considerations of substantial public interest which, if addressed, would prevent future litigation" (6-7). Held that parents who brought the suit demonstrated a justiciable controversy (8). Held that the parents had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of the case because the policy did not violate the parents' constitutional rights and the school district had the authority to put the policy in place (9-13). On the former, the Court cited Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), which said that the proper framework applicable in the context of a public health crisis was a two part test examining whether the policy had a "real or substantial relation" to the public health crisis and whether the policy was "beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion” of the parents’ rights (10-11). Held that the policy survived this analysis because the policy was designed to combat COVID and because the Supreme Court held in Prince v. Massachusetts that the government "has a wide range of power for limiting parental freedom and authority in things affecting the child's welfare" and in Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L (2021) that "schools at times stand in loco parentis" (11). On the latter, the Court held that the school district properly authorized its policy because the Arkansas Constitution Article 14, Section 1 states that "the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools and shall adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education" (12). Cited multiple cases that school directors have "implied powers" and "a broad discretion is vested in the board of directors of each school district in the matter of directing the operation of the schools" (12-13). Held that statutes "allow for a school’s broad authority to determine its policies" (13). Held that parents did not show that they would suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a temporary restraining order (14). Therefore, held that the circuit court abused its discretion in granting the temporary restraining order (14).

• Smith v. Pavan (2016): Signed Justice Hart's majority opinion. Held that a state law which prohibited both members of a same-sex couple from having their names listed on a baby’s birth certificate did not violate the Equal Protection or Due Process clauses because parenthood is distinct from marriage status (16) and that "Obergefell [v. Hodges (2015)] did not address Arkansas’s statutory framework regarding birth certificates, either expressly or impliedly" (9).

• After the majority's decision was reversed and remanded by the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Baker dissented from the majority's new opinion which remanded the case to the circuit court for entry of a final judgment consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court's mandate by ordering declaratory and injunctive relief (2). Baker argued that the Court's previous opinion should've been vacated, a substitute opinion reversing and dismissing the circuit court's order "which impermissibly rewrote the statute" should've be issued, and the statute should've been declared unconstitutional (4-5). Justice Baker commented, "Moreover, despite the State’s urging to take up a pen and set off through the Arkansas Code replacing the words 'husband' and 'wife' with 'spouse' or other gender-neutral alternatives, the truth is that that pen does not belong to us, nor does it belong to the circuit court. The pen belongs to the legislature and it is their duty to determine the best way to address the constitutional infirmity in these two statutes. We cannot fashion the remedy, the authority to do so rests solely with the legislature. Thus, there is no need to remand this matter to the circuit court, which is in no better position and has no more authority than we do to rewrite these statutes. To do so only delays this matter further" (5).

• Greene v. Kelly (2018): Signed Justice Wood's dissent. Argued that the majority declared a law facially unconstitutional too quickly. Stated that the majority violated stare decisis by reversing its precedent of Singleton v. Endell (1994) for no palpable reason that would warrant a change to precedent. Cited the U.S. Supreme Court's precedent of United States v. Salerno (1987), which required that a statute alleged to be facially unconstitutional must be unconstitutional under "any imaginable set of circumstances" (29). Therefore, if an imaginable set of circumstances existed under which the law could be constitution, then the law could not be declared facially constitutional. Argued that that set of circumstances cleared existed (30).

Info from Other Sources:

• Baker told ArkansasVotersGuide.com that John Roberts best reflects her judicial philosophy.