Jimm Larry Hendren

Who is Jimm Larry Hendren?

Jimm Larry Hendren is the US District Judge. He is well known for ruling in favor of Billy Ray and Mary Nell Counts, a couple in Cedarville, Arkansas, in the 2003 lawsuit Counts et ux. v. Cedarville School Board. The court decided that the local school's rule requiring parents' written consent to read the Harry Potter books was unconstitutional. The district court's opinion can be found here, and the decision was cited as precedent in subsequent censorship cases.

Hendren graduated with an LL.B. from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1965. Later that year Hendren would join the JAG Corps of the United States Navy, returning in 1968, for a year, to his private practice in Bentonville, Arkansas, which he would expand in later years. In 1970 Hendren became a United States Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander, a position he would hold until 1983. Meanwhile, in 1977, he became a probate judge of Arkansas' Sixteenth Chancery District, before returning again to his private practice.

He was nominated by George H. W. Bush as a District Court Judge for the Western District of Arkansas on November 5, 1991, to a new seat created by 104 Statute 5089.