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Ed Springston has written two posts raising ethical issues relating to a sitting judge on the Jefferson Circuit Court - Judge Charlie Cunningham and his rulings and comments from the bench in a partisan challenge to a Kentucky State Senate race. For your information.
Here are Mr. Springston's posts:
"Does Judge Charlie Cunningham have ethics problems?"
and
"Judge Charlie Cunningham screws up the 37th State Senate District race"
The rumors of the past several weeks has gained traction with a formal response by Senate President David Williams that he would consider accepting an appointment to the circuit court bench. Nothing about him or another submitting his name to the Judicial Nominating Commision for the circuit in question or if a "deal" or "arrangement" has been struck to hasten his exit from the state senate.
This is not the first time that our Governor has used the judicial vacancy appointment process to solve his partisan political issues in state government by "rewarding" them with distinguished judicial appointments which enhance the opponent's prestige, position, and pensions.
Now to consider appointing Williams to the bench is to politicize the judiciary in a way that can only puzzle court watchers who want an independent and judicious judiciary and not a haven for politicians in their twilight moments.
Or as Shoeless Joe Jackson was queried (my parody): "Say it ain't so, Stevie!"
Of course, in baseball being sent to the bench was not a good sign for a ball player.
The nominating commission is scheduled to meet on Oct. 26 to consider the appointments. However, there is more than just considering a nomination, Mr. Williams will have to have his name submitted to be considered.
When a judicial vacancy occurs, the executive secretary of the JNC notifies all attorneys and the public in the affected judicial circuit or district. Attorneys can recommend someone or nominate themselves. Interested attorneys must complete an application and return it to the executive secretary of the JNC.
The chief justice meets with the JNC to select three nominees and then forwards those names to the governor. The names of the three nominees are listed in alphabetical order without indicating the commission’s preference. The governor must appoint a judge from this list of three. If the governor does not appoint a judge within 60 days of receiving the list of nominees, the appointment is made by the chief justice from the list of nominees.
From the AOC Web Site.
Here is a link and an extract of the story by Joseph Gerth who leaked this story earlier in his political column. Read the entire story by following the link.
Senate President David Williams would consider appointment to circuit court bench
Senate President David Williams said through a spokeswoman Thursday that he would consider a judicial appointment if it was offered to him.That possibility has been a subject of speculation since Sept. 17, when Circuit Judge Eddie C. Lovelace died in a hospital in Nashville, Tenn. Lovelace served in the state’s 40th judicial circuit, which includes Williams’ hometown of Burkesville.
Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear will have the authority to appoint a replacement for Lovelace once a judicial nominating commission meets and recommends three lawyers to succeed him.
* * *
Williams had previously declined to comment on his interest in the position and had, in fact, criticized Beshear in the past when he appointed other Senate Republicans to high-paying positions in an effort to win back control of the Senate for the Democrats.
“If there is an appointment offer, Sen. Williams will consider it,” Williams spokeswoman Lourdes Baez-Schrader said in a statement Thursday.
More from the AOC Web Site regarding the notice of vacancy, etc.
Vacancy for the 40th Judicial Circuit, Clinton, Cumberland & Monroe counties.
Applications for this vacancy will be sought once members of the Judicial Nominating Commission have been appointed by the Governor.
From the Courier Journal, a "special" story written by Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Bill Cunningham:
Several years ago, on my birthday, a son asked me to recount the greatest changes in my lifetime.
Changes that I never expected to see.
The answer was easy. The end of the Cold War and civil rights.
I grew up in the segregation days of the Jim Crow South. Whites and blacks were segregated, always separate. Separate public rest rooms and water fountains, separate seating at public events. I remember the “Whites Only” signs, separate entrances, and separate seating. Mixed marriages were forbidden by law. A mixed couple suffered being ostracized, seen together at their own physical risk.
And we had separate schools. In old Eddyville, the blacks lived in a section of town called “Freewill,” its name derived from the days of emancipation when the slaves were at liberty to live where they chose of their own “free will.” The descendants of former slaves went to their own little shabby school up at the end of the hollow. There, they matriculated through the first eight grades. I remember seeing inside my own textbooks, issued by the County Board of Education, a stamp which allowed a check mark for either “white” or “colored.”
When my “colored” contemporaries finished the eighth grade, they faced a hard choice. They could quit school and go to work. Or if they wished to continue with their education — and few of them did —the Board of Education would send them to the Lincoln Institute near Louisville. They would be given a bus ticket to the big city in the fall and a return ticket home for Christmas. The school board also paid for their lodging there.
It is all true. Yet today it seems unreal — like something I dreamed. To my children, it is incomprehensible.
Of course, all that changed after Martin Luther King Jr., arrived on the scene and began his grand march for civil rights. A few years ago, as we commemorated Martin Luther King’s birthday, I went to Paducah to walk in the MLK March sponsored by the local NAACP. It was a cold, but brilliantly sunny day. We marched from the Cherry Civic Center to the cemetery and placed a wreath on a monument. There were over 100 people on that trek.
Click on linked heading above for the rest of the post.
Judge's billing request attacked
Courier Journal 12/23/2011
Story by Andrew WolfsonIn an unusual plea bargain, a Jefferson County judge offered to reduce the contempt sentence of a lawyer from six months to one weekend in jail — if she agreed to pay any legal fees the judge incurs fighting the lawyer’s appeals.
Attorneys for Louisville lawyer Amelia “Mikki” Adams have asked Kentucky’s chief justice to disqualify Jefferson District Judge Annette Karem from further hearing the case, saying she injected “her own pecuniary interests into her decision-making process,” creating a conflict of interest and “the appearance, if not the actuality, of impropriety.”
Karem’s lawyer, Lee Sitlinger, said the judge did nothing wrong and that it was his idea to include the payment of fees as one of the conditions for settling the case. Karem hired Sitlinger when Adams named her as the defendant in her appeals.
But leading national experts on judicial experts say it was improper for Karem to propose resolving a case in a way that would benefit her financially. Monroe Freedman, a lawyer professor who teaches ethics at Hofstra University, said in an email that “the judge should be removed from the case, if not from the bench.”
Click on linked heading above for the rest of the post.
