LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Attorney Jack Wagoner, who helped successfully challenge Arkansas’ ban on same-sex marriage in state and federal courts, has died. He was 62 years old.
Wagoner died Tuesday in Little Rock, said Bruce Tennant, an attorney who worked with him at his law firm. Tennant said the cause of death was not yet known.
Wagoner represented same-sex couples who challenged a constitutional amendment that Arkansas voters introduced into the state constitution in 2004, defining marriage as between a man and a woman. In 2014, a state judge struck down the amendment as unconstitutional, leading more than 500 same-sex couples to marry before the Arkansas Supreme Court stayed the decision.
The state Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the ban until the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. A federal judge also struck down the ban of Arkansas, but suspended its decision.
At the time of the ruling, Wagoner predicted that same-sex marriage would eventually be legal nationwide.
“It’s pretty clear where the story is going on this issue,” Wagoner said.
Cheryl Maples, a lawyer who had also represented the couples, died in 2019.
Tennant said the same-sex marriage case was an example of the types he focused on. Wagoner has also worked on nursing home neglect and abuse cases.
“He always wanted to fight for the little guy,” Tennant said.
Wagoner was also one of the attorneys who represented a divorced Arkansas man who was barred from visiting his child overnight in the presence of his longtime domestic partner. The state Supreme Court overturned that decision in 2013.
Wagoner is survived by his wife and two daughters.
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