Senior Status Judge Martin McDonald "with a controversial history threatened . . . to “strangle” a lawyer, then disparaged his case, calling it “ridiculous,” “disgusting” and “a huge waste of time.
From Andrew Wolfson's Courier Journal story, dated 10/4/2012.
Martin McDonald, a former Jefferson district and circuit judge, said in an interview later that he was being “facetious” when he threatened Friday to attack assistant public advocate David Barron if he ever called him again on his cellphone without opposing counsel’s participation. But leading national experts on legal ethics said McDonald’s comments about the case, in which Barron is seeking a new trial for death row inmate Roger Dale Epperson, indicate that the judge had improperly prejudged the case. “The judge’s conduct in general is highly injudicious,” said Hofstra University law professor Monroe Freedman. “He should be removed from this case and also from the bench.” McDonald was removed from an unrelated civil case on Sept. 19 by Kentucky Chief Justice John D. Minton after McDonald was accused by the defense of bias and failing to disclose a conflict of interest — that he’d practiced with the plaintiff’s lawyer 20 years earlier.
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