Jim Bruton (1913–1975)

James Lewis (Jim) Bruton was a state legislator, law enforcement official, and administrator in the Arkansas prison system. One of the most notorious figures to emerge from the scandals that rocked the Arkansas penitentiary in the late 1960s, he was convicted of violating prisoners’ civil rights while he was working at the Tucker Unit in Tucker (Jefferson County). Out of concern for his safety, he was not sentenced to serve any jail time.

Jim Bruton was born on May 19, 1913, in Morrilton (Conway County) to Roy Lee Bruton and Claudie F. Bruton, both Arkansas natives. Bruton’s education ended after the ninth grade. On March 29, 1935, he married Marie Wear in Faulkner County. The couple had two sons, Lewis and Ronald. Lewis, while a college student, was killed in September 1955 in a car accident on Highway 70 in Pulaski County.

Despite not having graduated from high school, in the early 1950s, Bruton was a member of the Morrilton school board. He also worked as a deputy sheriff in Conway County from 1951 to 1952 and served in the Arkansas General Assembly from 1952 to 1955 (where he was a member of the House Rules Committee).

In 1955, Bruton began his tenure at Tucker. As assistant superintendent, he held a position that made him the second most powerful administrator in the state prison system, answerable only to Superintendent Dan E. Stephens. At the time, Tucker was the smaller of the two prison farms (the other being Cummins) and the one that housed only white inmates. For almost twelve years, Bruton ran Tucker with little regard for professional ethics, inmate health or safety, or even common humanity. In September 1966, as a result of a report by the Arkansas State Police—who had the backing of Governor Orval Faubus—Bruton resigned from his position at Tucker. The previous year, Bruton had said of his tenure at the prison farm that “there has been no cruelty administered, in any manner, to any inmate.”

Among the many accusations against Bruton was that he physically abused inmates. Bruton—as documented in the 1967 case of Jackson v. Bishop—whipped prisoners for minor infractions, such as not picking enough cotton. The most grotesque of the allegations against him was that he used the “Tucker Telephone” as a means of inflicting punishment and extracting information. The telephone was an old-fashioned hand-cranked phone. Bruton would attach one end of the phone to an inmate’s toe or genitals and then deliver electric shocks when he cranked the device. A “long-distance call” sent an especially strong current through a prisoner’s body. This high-voltage torture was incredibly painful for the men who received it. Some passed out or lost their minds.

When state police raided Tucker after their report became public knowledge, the Tucker Telephone (one of two that existed) was found in a shoebox in Bruton’s office. The prison scandal led to long overdue changes in the running of the penitentiary. Winthrop Rockefeller won the governorship in 1966 largely on his prison reform agenda. Once in office, he hired Tom Murton to head Tucker Unit.

In August 1966, Bruton’s wife Marie died of breast cancer at age fifty at St. Vincent Hospital in Little Rock (Pulaski County). She is buried in Oppelo (Conway County).

In late January 1967, prosecutor Joe Holmes brought charges against Bruton and three wardens who were charged with excessive punishment of inmates. Holmes referred to Bruton’s two counts as “cruel and unusual.” Yet, in May 1968, an Arkansas judge dismissed the charges against Bruton, citing the lack of legal guidance for administering punishment to prisoners in Arkansas.

In July 1969, Judge J. Smith Henley created a federal panel that indicted fifteen prison workers for abusing inmates. Bruton was charged with eight counts, but he was acquitted on all charges. In January, however, facing further legal action, Bruton pleaded “no contest,” meaning he did not admit guilt or claim innocence. He could have pleaded guilty and taken a plea deal, but that would have resulted in him losing his state pension.

In his 1969 book Accomplices to the Crime, written after his troubled tenure at Tucker, Tom Murton provided detailed descriptions of Bruton’s misconduct. The use of the Tucker Telephone was notorious at that point, but Bruton’s additional crimes were numerous, sadistic, and creative, including bribery, theft, and beating prisoners with a cane.

Even so, Bruton ended up serving no jail time. According to the provisions of the 1871 Civil Rights Act, the maximum penalty for his crimes was one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Judge Henley instead gave Bruton one year of probation as punishment. His reasoning was not based on any notion of Bruton’s innocence, however. “I don’t believe,” Henley said, “you would live sixty days in prison,” adding that “other prisoners or friends of prisoners with whom you have dealt would kill you, and I don’t want to give you the death sentence.” Bruton was set free and allowed to keep his pension.

Bruton died of natural causes on July 4, 1975, at his home in Perryville (Perry County). The Courier News said that he had “attracted little or no publicity since leaving Tucker.” Conway County sheriff Marlin Hawkins, who Bruton had served with before his appointment at Tucker, remembered him as “a good man and a good law enforcement officer.” Bruton is buried in Wolf Cemetery in Oppelo.

For additional information:
“Arkansas Judge Voids Prison Case.” New York Times, May 14, 1968, p. 59.

“Bruton Acquitted of Eight Charges of Prison Cruelty.” Northwest Arkansas Times, November 22, 1969, p. 10.

“Former Penal Official Dead.” Northwest Arkansas Times, July 5, 1975, pp. 1–2.

“Jim Bruton Dies.” Blytheville Courier News, July 5, 1975, p. 2.

Murton, Thomas, and Joseph Hyams. Accomplices to the Crime. New York: Grove Press, 1969.

“Prison Footnotes.” Blytheville Courier News, January 23, 1970, p. 6.

Reeves, Anne. “3 Fired Wardens, Bruton Charged in Tucker Probe.” Arkansas Gazette, January 28, 1967, pp. 1A, 2A.

Colin Woodward
Nevada State Museum