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A travesty of justice is unfolding in Arkansas, but it isn’t too late to stop it.
At 1:12 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 8, 2024, Aaron Spencer and his wife awoke to find their 13-year-old daughter missing from her bed. Spencer’s wife called 911, while Spencer jumped into his vehicle and sped off into the night, desperate to find any trace of his missing child. He hadn’t gone far when he spotted the truck of Michael Fosler, 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 for 43 separate counts including sexual assault of a minor, internet stalking of a child, and possession of child pornography. The Lonoke County prosecutors handled the case, with it landing on the desk of Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore. It’s a little unclear who dropped the ball—Lonoke County, Judge Elmore, or some combination of both—but what we know for sure is that this dangerous abuser of children was released from custody on a $5,000 bond, with a no contact order in place to prevent further abuse of Spencer’s daughter. Then Oct. 8 came, 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, one year after being arrested for allegedly gunning down his teenage daughter’s accused rapist. (Aaron Spencer/Facebook)
Spencer’s actions in that moment were nothing short of heroic. He ran Fosler’s truck off the road, and firearm in hand, ordered him to release his daughter. Instead, Fosler fought back, and the struggle ended with Spencer emptying his firearm into Fosler. Spencer then rescued his daughter from the truck and called 911.
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Spencer never should have 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 was put in. Astonishingly, the prosecuting attorney not only failed to take any responsibility for what had transpired; he charged Aaron Spencer with second-degree murder. And wouldn’t you know it, the judge on the case was none other than Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore.
Judge Elmore immediately took action to hide this affair from the public eye, dropping a gag order on everyone in any way connected with the case, preventing them, on penalty of contempt of court, from speaking with the press or the public about the case. Gag orders are not that unusual, but this gag order was so expansive and so obtrusive that the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in and declared it unconstitutional, finding that it “was on its face a plain, manifest, clear, and gross abuse of discretion and in excess of its authority.”
Judge Elmore was undeterred. Despite the constitutional right every defendant has to a public trial, she essentially closed the trial to the public, greatly limiting the seats available to the public, 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 justifying it. For the people of Arkansas, it seemed like the fix was in. The judge who had once failed Aaron Spencer’s daughter was now committed to ensuring that his trial would happen in as close to secrecy as she could muster.
Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in, again, vacating 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 showed just how egregious her behavior had become.
Aaron Spencer was accused of killing a man suspected of preying on his daughter. (Lonoke County Detention Center)
This is the first step toward justice, but it shouldn’t be the last. The prosecuting attorney should drop this case altogether.
Not that the prosecution’s behavior up to this point has been indicative of good judgment. Statements from the prosecutors in this case are not only embarrassing; they should trouble the people of Arkansas. Prosecutors suggested that Spencer’s angry comments from July—when he discovered that his daughter had been raped by Fosler—were somehow evidence of his intent in October. Never mind that such anger would be the natural reaction of any father. And never mind that Spencer didn’t hunt down Fosler and murder him in the weeks or even months that followed; he shot him while rescuing his daughter from another kidnapping by Fosler.
Prosecutors also suggested that Spencer should have just called 911 when he saw his daughter in the truck with Fosler. That a father should give up the pursuit of his daughter’s kidnapper and rapist in the hopes that the police could arrive in time to save her is so astonishingly absurd it boggles the mind that any prosecutor charged with protecting and defending citizens and victims of crimes would countenance it.
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But the removal of Judge Elmore and the attendant delay in Spencer’s trial provide an opportunity to end this farce. The local prosecutors should drop this case. The state attorney general should refuse to defend any conviction, in the unlikely event a jury returns one. And the governor should promise to do everything in her power to pardon Spencer, if she must. To do otherwise is to turn justice on its head and to leave every person in Arkansas at the mercy of the predators who would victimize them and their children.