Jim Gunter
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Legal Newsline)-An Arkansas Supreme Court justice won't face battery charges for allegedly assaulting his 63-year-old sister last year, an official said.
Justice Jim Gunter won't be charged for the reported altercation with his sister Janet Gibson on Sept. 2, 2007, said Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley, who was appointed as special prosecutor last year to handle the case.
"She just decided to let it go," Jegley said.
In a police report, Gibson claimed her brother backhanded her across the mouth and shoved her to the floor when she attempted to get up after she refused to give her brother some family genealogy papers.
Jegley said he had intended to charge Gunter with third-degree assault, which carries a penalty of up to one year in a county jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000.
Gibson wrote in a Sept. 27, 2007 to the prosecutor that she wanted the case against her brother dropped.
"Jim and I have already worked out our differences and come to a peaceful, Christian understanding," Gibson wrote.
A former Hempstead County circuit judge, Gunter was elected to the state Supreme Court in 2004.
From Legal Newsline: Reach reporter Chris Rizo at chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com.