On Saturday, people in Arkansas held a fundraiser for Aaron Spencer, the Republican nominee for sheriff of Lonoke County. They raised the money not for Spencer’s campaign. He’s a lock because Trump picked up 76% of the vote in the county 2 years ago.
The money is for his murder trial, which begins next month.
On October 8, 2024, Spencer shot and killed Michael Fosler, 67, after a 6-mile car chase, which ended with Spencer’s truck ramming Fosler’s truck. Spencer then shot Fosler multiple times. One unverifiable report on Twitter Spencer said the father emptied his Glock 19 by firing all 16 rounds, hitting Fosler 15 times.
Pretty good shooting even at close range. Spencer went Airborne when he was in the Army.
He admitted to the chase and the killing, which occurred after his 14-year-old daughter was abducted by Fosler from her bed. She had gone willingly but she was below the age of consent, which is 16 in Arkansas.
The confrontation came three months after police arrested Fosler and charged him with 43 felonies, including rape and other sexual offenses against the girl, then 13. The arrest came 3 days after workers at a children’s advocacy center interviewed the girl.
From April to July, Fosler allegedly began grooming, sexually assaulting, and raping the girl. This included multiple incidents of sexual contact, exploitation, and production/possession of child sexual abuse material.
Law enforcement charged him with 43 felony counts, including:
- Rape of a minor
- Internet stalking of a child
- Fourth-degree sexual assault
- Sexual indecency with a child
- Multiple counts of possession/pandering of child pornography
The case preliminarily went before Judge Teresa Smith, who set Fosler’s bond at $50,000 and issued a do-not-contact order. He made bail. Three months later, he violated the court order. He’s dead.
In the aftermath of Fosler’s death, Spencer appeared before Judge Barbara Elmore for killing his child’s molester. Other than the 43 charges filed against Fosler that July, his criminal record looks clean.
But there is an allegation that Fosler molested a girl in 1981 when he was a town cop in Hamlet, Indiana. After the Spencer case became public, a woman came forward and claimed that he sexually abused her in 1981 when she was a child. At the time, her family reportedly reported it to police at the time, but no charges were filed against Fosler.
Prosecutors argue that Spencer used excessive force in carrying out vigilante justice. One can view the case as a lynching by bullets, not a noose.
Then again, in Arkansas self-defense includes protecting a third party from harm.
The public is behind him as he received 53% of the vote in the primary. The incumbent sheriff—the man who along with prosecutor decided to charge him with second-degree murder—received 26% of the vote with a third man receiving 20%.
Jurors will decide his fate and also the election’s outcome. A guilty verdict might trigger a pardon from Governor Sarah Sanders but Spencer’s eligibility to hold public office requires expunging his record, which under the state constitution if Arkansas cannot be done in the case of an infamous crime.
I am no lawyer, but the jury could find that he did not use excessive force. Once you kill a man, it does not matter how many bullets you fire. Two ex-Texas Rangers, two Dallas County deputies and two Louisiana law enforcement officers fired 130 bullets into Bonnie and Clyde’s car 92 years ago.
Twenty-six hit Bonnie and 17 hit Clyde. The rest hit the 1934 Ford V-8 Deluxe Sedan that Clyde stole from Jesse and Ruth Warren of Kansas. Police returned it with bullet holes and bloodstains. The couple promptly sold the sedan.
The death car now is on permanent display at Buffalo Bill’s Resort & Casino (part of the Primm Valley Resorts) in Primm, Nevada, 40 miles south of Las Vegas.
Sorry I strayed. The jury’s other choice is jury nullification, which is to simply ignore the law and let him go.
Jury nullification is older than the nation itself.
On November 17, 1734, royal governor William Cosby of New York ordered the arrest of publisher John Peter Zenger for seditious libel, a criminal charge carrying a possible 9 month sentence. The royal governor kept him in New York’s old city jail for 9 months before a brief jury. So much for reasonable bail.
Zenger’s lawyer argued that what he published was the truth. The judge told the jury that the truth is not a defense under the law. The jury said otherwise.
Seventy years later, no longer under the crown, New York legalized the truth as a defense in libel cases.
The most infamous case of jury nullification was the O.J. Simpson trial for the murder of his wife and a waiter.
The Arkansas Supreme Court already intervened in Spencer’s case by removing Judge Elmore and appointing a special judge. That is likely to the relief of Elmore.
As for the sheriff who jailed Spencer, Republicans primary-ed him because Spencer had the gumption to try to end the sheriff’s political career.
One more thing, upon further reflection, the money was for his campaign because if he loses, the county does too.
NOTE: Today is Memorial Day. Jesus died to make men holy. Remember the ones who died to make them free because freedom is never free.
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This article first appeared on Don Surber’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission.
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