A Kentucky lawmaker filed a resolution to impeach Fayette County Circuit Court Judge Julie Muth Goodman, who has served as Kentucky judge since 2008. She’s accused of undermining trust in the judicial process through six specific cases, most of which are still under appeal.
Rep. Jason Nemes, a Middletown Republican who chairs the House Impeachment Committee, filed the resolution Wednesday, days after holding a lengthy hearing in which Goodman defended her rulings and abilities as a jurist.
The Kentucky House has the power to impeach all civil officers for “misdemeanors in office.” That resolution is then sent to the Senate, which tries and then can convict the official with a two-thirds majority.
The impeachment committee has considered five other impeachment petitions as well — two of which they quickly dismissed without a hearing. The other two outstanding petitions are against Supreme Court Justice Pamela Goodwine and Fayette County Board of Education Chair Tyler Murphy. Both have filed responses to the petitions to defend themselves, and no hearings have yet been scheduled.
Impeachments and convictions are incredibly rare in Kentucky. The state recently witnessed its first impeachment conviction in over a century in 2023, when lawmakers ousted former prosecutor Ronnie Goldy, who has since been sentenced on 14 federal charges for soliciting nude photos from a woman in exchange for court favors.
Goodman’s case is substantially different. She has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing, but the petition accuses her of disregarding the law in her decisions and siding too frequently with defendants instead of crime victims.
Nemes declined to comment on the resolution or the specific reasoning behind his resolution when asked Wednesday and said he would explain more when it is brought for a vote.
The longtime judge, who won her last nonpartisan election uncontested, said she may be wrong in some cases, but that she upholds the law in her courtroom and treats prosecutors with fairness, holding them accountable. She also said the proceedings are patently unfair because most of the cases in which she has been accused of wrongdoing are still pending, meaning she cannot comment on them.
“More troubling to me than what is happening to me is the fact that these defendants are being — their cases are being tried in a public forum on TV when those cases are still pending,” Goodman said.
Nemes defended his choice to hold a hearing, saying they aren’t retrying the cases, but questioning Goodman’s biases and misconduct within her rulings.
Goodman’s lawyer Robert McBride said the arguments against her were complaints with her rulings and didn’t amount to a “misdemeanor” — the word used in the constitutional provisions that allow for impeachments.
“What I am suggesting is because of this petition and because there is no misdemeanor in office alleged or discernible in our view that the public hearing is unnecessary and has negative collateral effects on a sitting judge,” McBride said.
Kimberly Baird, the commonwealth attorney for Fayette County, testified in the hearing against Goodman. She alleged that Goodman had treated her prosecutors unfairly, saying her comments from the bench paint “a picture of partiality and a predetermined opinion based on possible extrajudicial sources.”
“All parties are to be treated fairly and respectfully in court, not just the defense side,” Baird said. “The cumulative effect of her behavior and animus towards the office of the Commonwealth Attorney and often to victims of crime is a violation of the trust and that the public instilled in her to rule competently according to the law, to act humbly, and to treat all parties — the defendant and his attorney, the commonwealth, and the victim — with dignity and respect.”
Lawmakers especially latched onto a chart that Baird provided that showed the “approximate” number of times Goodman had ruled in favor of defendants’ request to suppress evidence compared to other circuit court judges in the area. The average rate for other judges was 19% while Goodman’s was 80%. Judges can suppress evidence because of a constitutional violation, like illegal searches, or violation of another law.
Goodman said that the petition looks at cases in which prosecutors have grievances, but ignores some of the poor conduct she has witnessed from the commonwealth attorney’s office. Goodman said she believes Baird has held a grudge against her since she lost a 2008 district judge race to Goodman.
“She also thinks that I'm rude and … that I'm mean to her prosecutors. I beg to differ,” Goodman said. “I as a judge am required to hold any lawyer who comes before me, whether in a civil case or a criminal case. It is my duty to hold them accountable to know the law, to understand the law and to apply it fairly.”
Democratic Rep. Josh Watkins of Louisville questioned in the hearing why Baird had not filed a complaint with the Judicial Conduct Commission, which has the authority to take disciplinary action against a sitting Kentucky judge. Baird said it was because “there is a perception” that judges protect their own so she hadn’t yet attempted it.
Goodman said that she’s had friends ask her if, knowing she would be impeached, she would change any of the rulings that brought her under the microscope.
“My answer has always been and continues to be the oath I took and my moral compass would have required me to rule exactly as I did. So for that I have no apologies,” Goodman said. “I would love to be able to tell you why I ruled those the way I did in each and every one of these cases. I believe my attorneys have written excellent summaries of what really happened in those cases, not little blurbs or little snippets pulled out to make it sound the way it does. And I would ask you to read those because I cannot ethically give you my side.”
