The Arkansas House Judiciary Committee debated a range of issues Tuesday, including robots, the death penalty and forced abortions.
Medical Abortion
Rep. Jimmy Gazaway, R-Paragould, presented a bill to heighten penalties on someone who forces an abortion on someone else.
HB1551 was inspired by Catherine Herring. The Texas woman was married to Mason Herring when he drugged her water with mifepristone. He was given 180 days in jail and 10 years of probation for the offense. Herring and Gazaway thought this penalty was too mild.
The bill would create a new offense called “coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud,” meaning if someone gave someone an abortion drug without their knowledge, they could face a felony conviction. In Arkansas, this means up to 20 years in prison.
During the meeting, Herring told the story of her assault. She said a week after asking for a divorce, her husband brought her breakfast in bed, telling her that as a pregnant woman she needed to “stay hydrated.”
Herring said it all “seemed odd.” He became impatient throughout the morning, urging her to drink faster, telling her to “chug” water. Eventually, she looked down at the glass and noticed her beverage was cloudy.
About 30 minutes later, Herring began bleeding. She took hormones in her cabinet to reverse the abortion and went to her local hospital.
She caught her husband five more times trying to put mifepristone in her beverage, including on a hidden camera. Her daughter survived the abortion attempt and was named Josephine.
The bill passed unanimously with bipartisan support.
Robots with guns
A bill to prevent robots from operating guns was pulled from the committee agenda to be reintroduced at a later date.
Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, is the chair of the House Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology. He is concerned about burgeoning AI capabilities like drone warfare and battle robots. Last summer, he attended an AI conference that inspired the legislation, also modeled from a law in Massachusetts.
“One of the talks I sat in was a talk by a gentleman from General Dynamics,” he said. “One of their concerns is to these robots. Sooner or later someone is going to take them and weaponize them and use them against our citizens.”
Meeks said humans have “moral compasses” and robots do not. During testimony, he held up his laptop showing the committee video of a “fully autonomous robot.” The robot was human-like, and able to stack objects on shelves.
“This video is just a few months old,” Meeks said.
Meeks thinks this kind of technology is apt to become more “commonplace” in the next ten years. The bill has exceptions for robot competitions, or movies where a robot may carry a gun.
Rep. Scott Richardson, R-Bentonville, questioned the purpose of the law. He said he wants to “explore the possibilities of lawful use.”
Meeks agreed to pull the legislation to amend it for clarification.
Capital punishment
Gazaway also put forward a bill to expand the crimes that are punishable by the death penalty. The law currently only allows the death penalty for murder in conjunction with another crime such as rape, burglary or terrorism.
Under Gazaway's bill, any violation of the Controlled Substances Act could be used to upgrade murder charges to a capital offense. This means if someone dies as the result of drugs sold illegally, the dealer could be subject to the death penalty. In some states, these are called "death resulting laws."
Pulaski and Perry County Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones testified at the committee meeting.
“The most violent drug in Little Rock is marijuana,” he said. “We have more transactions involving marijuana and violence than any other drug.”
He said that “any illegal drug transaction should be a predicate for capital murder.”
Defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig testified against the bill. He listed many reasons, saying the bill does not consider the “intent” of the drug dealer.
“We don't capitalize other felonies,” he said. “We don't capitalize hot checks or antitrust violations. If there is a gap in the law, make it a first degree or second degree murder, but keep the death penalty out of this.”
He also said it had a drafting error, possibly removing lesser offenses from state law.
Gazaway relented at the end of the discussion, saying Rosenzweig had a good point. He agreed to pull the bill to perhaps amend the wording.
Copyright 2025 KUAR
