The Honorable Mike Huckabee, Governor,
Members of the General Assembly,
Fellow Judges and Justices, and Fellow Arkansans:

It is my pleasure to have the opportunity of presenting this special report of the state of the Arkansas judicial system and its work during the year 2000. It includes an excellent description of the structure of our court system and documents the work of our state's judges and court employees. It also describes a large array of important projects which were undertaken to both analyze and improve our court system and its service to our state's citizens.

The year 2000 was particularly significant for the state court system because of the approval by the voters of Amendment 80 to the Arkansas Constitution. The adoption of the Amendment has been the goal of those interested in the revision and improvement of our judicial system for many years. With the welcomed change, however, comes a large amount of work to insure that our transition to a new system is designed and implemented in a way so as to cause the least amount of disruption and produce the greatest benefits for our state and its citizens. Change, even change which is really needed, is difficult - especially for those of us in the judicial branch. The next five years of implementation will require a great deal of work and cooperation by and between the courts and the executive and legislative branches, as well as between state and local governments. While our task is a large one, the potential benefits for our state and for those who work in and utilize our court system are even larger. We have an opportunity to streamline our system to make it more responsive and more efficient. A new method of selecting our judges will be less political and increase the confidence in our judiciary.

I look forward to working with the Governor and General Assembly as we further develop our overall goal of providing our citizens with the finest judicial system possible.

W.H. "Dub" Arnold
Chief Justice