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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 their bed. Spencer's wife called 911, as Spencer jumped into his vehicle and sped off into the night, desperate to find any trace of his missing son. 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, online harassment of a child, and possession of child pornography. Lonoke County prosecutors handled the case and it landed on Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore's desk. It's a little 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 from custody on $5,000 bail, with a no-contact order in place to prevent further abuse of Spencer's daughter. Then October 8th arrived and neither the bond nor the no-contact order were worth the paper they were printed on.
Aaron Spencer has announced he is running for sheriff in Arkansas, a year after being arrested for allegedly shooting to death the accused rapist of his teenage daughter. (Aaron Spencer/Facebook)
Spencer's actions at that moment were nothing short of heroic. He ran Fosler's truck off the road and, gun in hand, ordered him to free his daughter. Instead, Fosler fought back and the fight ended when Spencer emptied his firearm at Fosler. Spencer then rescued her daughter from the truck and called 911.
ARMY VET DAD RESPONDS TO SHERIFF WHILE ACCUSED OF SHOOTING HIS DAUGHTER'S ALLEGED SEXUAL PREDATOR
Spencer should have never been in this situation. He shouldn't have had to save his daughter from a monster. But because local elected prosecutors and judges failed him, that was the position he found himself in. Surprisingly, the prosecutor not only took no responsibility for what had happened; charged Aaron Spencer with second-degree murder. And although you may not know it, the judge in the case was none other than Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore.
Judge Elmore immediately took steps to conceal this matter from public view, imposing a gag order on all persons connected in any way with the case, preventing them, under penalty of contempt of court, from speaking to the press or the public about the case. Gag orders are not all that unusual, but this gag order was so expansive and so intrusive that the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in and declared it unconstitutional, finding it “on its face to be a simple, manifest, clear and gross abuse of discretion and an excess of its authority.”
Judge Elmore was unfazed. Despite every defendant's constitutional right to a public trial, he essentially closed the trial to the public, greatly limiting the seating available to the public, the media, and even Spencer's own defense team. Elmore did this without providing any alternative means of viewing the trial and without any evidentiary hearing or judicial findings to justify it. To the people of Arkansas, it seemed like the deal was settled. The judge who had once failed Aaron Spencer's daughter was now committed to ensuring her trial was carried out in as much secrecy as possible.
Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court intervened again and overturned the judge's order. But they didn't stop there. The high court took the extraordinary step of removing Judge Elmore from the case. The unusual remedy demonstrated how egregious his behavior had become.
Aaron Spencer was charged with killing a man suspected of taking advantage of 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 completely.
Not that the prosecution's behavior up to this point has been indicative of good judgment. The prosecutors' statements in this case are not only embarrassing; They should bother the people of Arkansas. Prosecutors suggested that Spencer's angry comments in July (when she discovered her daughter had been raped by Fosler) were somehow evidence of her intentions in October. It doesn't matter that anger is the natural reaction of any parent. And never mind that Spencer didn't hunt down Fosler and murder him in the weeks or even months that followed; He shot her while rescuing her daughter from another kidnapping by Fosler.
Prosecutors also suggested Spencer should have called 911 when she saw her daughter in the van with Fosler. For a father to stop 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 is surprising that any prosecutor charged with protecting and defending citizens and crime victims would approve of it.
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But the dismissal of Judge Elmore and the subsequent delay in Spencer's trial provide an opportunity to end this charade. Local prosecutors should drop this case. The state attorney general should decline to defend any conviction, in the unlikely event that a jury returns it. And the governor should promise to do everything in her power to pardon Spencer, if necessary. To do otherwise would be to turn justice on its head and leave every person in Arkansas at the mercy of predators who would victimize them and their children.
