In matters of judicial impeachment, the Kentucky House acts like a grand jury, able to send cases to the Senate to be heard and tried. Friday, the House voted 73-14 — largely down party lines — to do just that in the petition regarding Fayette Circuit Judge Julie Muth Goodman.
It would create a precedent for politically motivated removal efforts.Pamela Stevenson, Democratic House Minority Leader
Rep. Jason Nemes, chair of the House Impeachment Committee, argued Goodman's behavior in the cases referenced in the complaint against her constitute willful disregard of the law.
"What is the pattern that connects these six cases across several years. It is this: Judge Goodman sees herself as a law unto herself," he said. "If she does not like a statute enacted by the General Assembly, she disregards it."
Democratic Minority Floor Leader Pamela Stevenson noted the impeachment marks the first against a sitting Kentucky judge in over a century , adding that the downstream effects will be felt in courtrooms across the state.
"It will undermine judicial independence because now judges will be thinking 'will this opinion cause the legislature to review my actions?' It's a chilling effect," she said. "Then it would create a precedent for politically motivated removal efforts."
Lawmakers debated whether the allegations against Goodman involving bias and judicial activism rise to the standard of a misdemeanor — a term some lawmakers equated to a crime while others maintained is a broader term in the context of an impeachment.
Goodman argued in her hearing that, because most of the cases being discussed remained pending, she was barred from giving her side of the story, and that her due process rights were violated.
The matter now heads to the Kentucky Senate, where a two-thirds vote is necessary to remove Goodman from the bench.