Duane Gonder v. Tim Griffin, Arkansas Attorney General

── Duane Gonder v. Tim Griffin, Arkansas Attorney General ── Court: Supreme Court of Arkansas Date: April 23, 2026 Category: General Cite as 2026 Ark. 74 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. CV-25-549 Opinion Delivered: April 23, 2026 DUANE GONDER APPELLANT PRO SE APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, THIRD DIVISION; V. MOTION FOR DECISION ON APPELLANT’S BRIEF ALONE TIM GRIFFIN, ARKANSAS [NO. 60CV-24-5377] ATTORNEY GENERAL HONORABLE CATHLEEN V. APPELLEE COMPTON, JUDGE AFFIRMED; MOTION MOOT. COURTNEY RAE HUDSON, Associate Justice Duane Gonder appeals from the dismissal without prejudice of his petition for declaratory and injunctive relief filed against Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin. In the circuit court, Gonder alleged that Arkansas Code Annotated section 15-54-119(a) (Supp. 2009) is unconstitutional as applied to him and his fellow inmates. The circuit court granted the appellee’s motion to dismiss, finding that Gonder lacked standing and had failed to raise a justiciable controversy; the circuit court imposed a strike. Also pending before this court is Gonder’s motion for a decision based on his brief alone.1 We affirm, which renders Gonder’s motion moot. 1 In the motion, Gonder alleged that appellee had failed to file a timely responsive brief, and therefore, the appellee’s brief should be excluded from consideration. However, appellee was granted an extension and the response brief was timely.  In a 2010 negotiated plea, Gonder pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, aggravated assault, and attempting to furnish a prohibited article in a correctional facility;2 he was sentenced to an aggregate term of 552 months’ imprisonment. Gonder v. State, 2022 Ark. 67, 641 S.W.3d 626. On appeal, Gonder contends, as he did in the circuit court, that section 5-54-119(a) is unconstitutional as applied to him and other inmates who are incarcerated and never leave the prison unit. According to Gonder, the statutory provision criminalizing the introduction of prohibited articles in a correctional facility violates due process and equal protection as applied to him and inmates like himself.3 Gonder asserts that because the court of appeals in Laster v. State, 76 Ark. App. 324, 64 S.W.3d 800 (2002), interpreted “introduction” to mean bringing in prohibited articles from outside a prison facility, the statute is unconstitutional as applied to inmates who never leave the prison facility.4 Gonder argues that he has standing to assert this constitutional claim because he and other inmates 2 Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-54-119(a) provides: (a) A person commits the offense of furnishing a prohibited article if he or she knowingly: (1) Introduces a prohibited article into a correctional facility, the Arkansas State Hospital, or a youth services program; or (2) Provides a person confined in a correctional facility, the Arkansas State Hospital, or a youth services program with a prohibited article. 3 In his supplemental motion for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief, Gonder argued that section 5-54-119 is also unconstitutionally vague. 4 When Gonder pleaded guilty to attempting to commit the crime set forth in section 5-54-119(a) in 2010, Laster had already been decided. Gonder failed to raise the issue addressed in Laster before his plea but instead relies on that decision to challenge the statute’s constitutionality sixteen years after his plea hearing. 2 face the threat of prosecution if found in possession of prohibi