Arkansas Is Fighting a Law That Doesn't Exist — While the Law That Freed Patrick's Killer Goes Unchanged

Please help change Arkansas Act 911 of 1989

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted this to social media recently:

"In our state, you cannot replace Arkansas law with Sharia law. We will not allow it. Period."

Attorney General Tim Griffin has echoed the same theme. It follows months of statehouse attention on the subject — a legislative resolution aimed at Sharia law in property disputes was filed this spring, generated headlines, and died in committee without a single documented case of Sharia law displacing Arkansas law anywhere in this state.

I want to be direct about why that bothers me. There is no Sharia law crisis in Arkansas. It is, by the account of the lawmakers who debated it themselves, a talking point in search of a problem.

Meanwhile, there is a real Arkansas law that has already let my husband's killer walk free of a jury, and it hasn't gotten a single social media post from the Governor.

What Act 911 Did to My Family

My husband, Patrick Massey, was shot nine times, mutilated, and set on fire in the Lazy Bend community of Grant County in 2019. Philip Reynolds — a former criminal defense attorney with a law degree from Southern Methodist University — was charged with capital murder, along with additional felony charges for shooting our neighbor, Jerry Mauldin, as Jerry tried to flee, and for firing at law enforcement.

Reynolds never faced a jury. On May 7, 2024, after years of fitness proceedings, the 7th Judicial Circuit Court in Grant County acquitted him due to lack of criminal responsibility. He was diagnosed with a delusional disorder and, instead of prison, was placed on the path Arkansas's Act 911 provides: evaluation, commitment, and — if doctors and a judge agree — conditional release back into society within five years, subject to conditions like medication compliance and drug testing.

Act 911 became law in 1989 under Gov. Bill Clinton, part of a national trend at the time toward community-based mental health care instead of long-term institutionalization. That's a reasonable goal for a lot of cases. It is not reasonable for a man whose own HCR-20 violence risk assessment showed a high likelihood of future violence, and who — according to his own doctors — remains delusional even while medicated.

In March, I sat through a nearly two-hour Zoom hearing asking whether Reynolds should move from the Arkansas State Hospital to a less secure placement. A judge said no, for now. But under Act 911, he can ask again in 180 days. And again after that. Every six months, for the rest of both our lives, unless the law changes.

Why I'm Writing This Now

I understand why "Sharia law" makes a better headline than "forensic commitment statute." One is exotic and frightening in the abstract. The other is a case management framework buried in Arkansas law that almost nobody outside the courts and the mental health system will ever read — until it's their family.

But Act 911 affects real Arkansas families in a way that a hypothetical Sharia law takeover never will. It already determined that the man who murdered Patrick would get a doctor's evaluation instead of a jury, and a shot at freedom instead of a life sentence. I emailed every member of the Arkansas Legislature about this in November 2024. One replied — a simple thank you. The rest have said nothing, through an entire legislative session in which not one bill was filed to fix Act 911.

What I'm Asking For

I'm not asking Governor Sanders or Attorney General Griffin to stop talking about Sharia law. I'm asking them to spend at least as much energy on the law that has actually cost an Arkansas family a husband and father — by supporting reforms to Act 911 that require stricter, more consistent release and placement criteria for forensic patients found to have committed violent offenses, so that a documented high risk of future violence isn't treated as a formality to be revisited every six months until it's finally overlooked.

Arkansas has real problems that reach into real families. Mine is one of them. I'd like our state's leaders to say "we will not allow it" about the gaps in Act 911 with the same conviction they've brought to a threat that isn't there.

— Ann Massey

Have you or someone you love been affected by Act 911 placement or release decisions? I want to hear from you.we