The Kentucky Senate and House both censured state Supreme Court Justice Kelly Thompson Wednesday over his concurring opinion ruling a judge’s impeachment unconstitutional.
GOP lawmakers objected to the judge’s language in the opinion, alleging it threatened them if they continued with an impeachment trial against a sitting judge.
Thompson told Kentucky Public Radio that he stands by his opinion. He said that lawmakers cannot impeach and remove elected officials because of their opinions.
The controversy revolves around a Republican attempt to impeach Fayette County Circuit Judge Julie Muth Goodman for allegedly ignoring precedent and state laws in her rulings and statements from the bench.
Goodman is currently under investigation by the Judicial Conduct Commission herself, and the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-1 decision that the House’s impeachment resolution violated the separation of powers. It orders an end to any further impeachment proceedings against the judge, but GOP lawmakers have taken exception to the ruling.
The Senate acted first, adopting the resolution of GOP President Robert Stivers to censure Thompson in a voice vote. The House then followed suit, passing an identical censure resolution from GOP House Speaker David Osborne by a party-line vote.
The censure resolution is the latest expression of discontent with the Supreme Court ruling blocking the Goodman impeachment, as lawmakers refuse to halt the proceedings entirely, instead pausing them until the commission completes its inquiry.
“Justice Thompson's statements are intemperate remarks that threaten the constitutional rights of members of the General Assembly, attorneys providing legal counsel to the General Assembly, and others with professional discipline and criminal prosecution,” the resolution reads. “Justice Thompson's intemperate remarks reflect poorly on his judgment and raise serious questions about his fitness for the office he holds.”
Thompson told KPR after the Senate’s censure that he is both “shocked and honored” by the resolution, saying he respects Stivers, but clearly “got under his skin.”
“I wrote an opinion that said, ‘You can't impeach someone for frivolous matters,’ and he then tries to retaliate and censor me for writing an opinion,” Thompson said.
“The will of the people in an election in a democracy is sacrosanct. It is religious to me that an elected official cannot be removed after the people elected him unless he commits a serious offense, and the legislature is trying to impeach and remove people from office because of their opinion.”
The Administrative Office of the Courts spokesperson Jim Hannah said that the court would not comment on the resolution and speaks through its opinions.
Thompson’s concurring opinion was written in even stronger terms than the majority one penned by Chief Justice Debra Lambert. Stivers particularly objected to a portion of Thompson’s opinion that said impeachment threats designed to influence the outcome of a case would be grounds for a lawyer to be censured by the Kentucky Bar Association or even the crime of intimidating a participant in the legal process, a Class D felony.
“I can only conclude that the legislature is seeking to intimidate the judiciary into ruling lockstep in its favor by not immediately dismissing frivolous petitions to impeach judges and in fact
impeaching judges without adequate cause,” Thompson said in his opinion. “This is wholly inappropriate.”
On the Senate floor, Stivers said he believes Thompson threatened his law license and his freedom in the opinion. He pointed to the portion of the state constitution that holds the General Assembly’s right to impeach “shall remain inviolate,” meaning it must remain untainted or damaged.
“I'm a lawyer, I'm practicing. He has the right, I guess, by this opinion and the Supreme Court, to disbar me for doing what is our constitutional duty,” Stivers said. “What's worse, he's threatening that if we went forward, which we may at a point in time, that I may be arrested for a Class D felony.”
Democratic Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong said the resolution creates conflict between the branches, threatening judicial independence and the separation of powers.
“It is equally as important that our judges be able to interpret the law without fear of reprisal, and that they too have that immunity to be independent and to rule on the law as they see fit,” Chambers Armstrong said. “Justice should be blind. Justice should not operate in the shadow of potential punishment, particularly not potential punishment by another branch of government.”
Chambers Armstrong argued that denying the Supreme Court’s ability to interpret the law and the Constitution as they see fit is a dangerous precedent to set.
“That is the collapse of our democratic institutions. That is the collapse of the rule of law. That is a collapse of everything that we hold sacred and special about what it means to be an American, and what it means to live in a democracy, and what it means to live the great Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Chambers Armstrong said.
Senate leadership has already indicated they believe they are not bound by the Supreme Court decision and independently decided to pause their impeachment proceedings, but do not believe they have to drop them altogether.
GOP Sen. Phillip Wheeler of Pikeville said that the three branches of government may be co-equal, but that the legislative branch stands “first among equals.”
“But by God, we have a right for the Kentucky Constitution to do our duty,” Wheeler said. “We should have the ability to do that without threat or intimidation from another branch.”
As the House passed the identical censure resolution, Osborne said “the words of the resolution speak for themselves.”
Osborne then used a maneuver to cut off all debate and force a vote on the censure resolution, denying Democrats an opportunity to air their criticisms of the move.
Rep. Lindsey Burke of Lexington, the chair of the House Democratic caucus, called the resolution and the "maneuver used to silence” them “an unprecedented move taken on by a majority that is out to really undermine what American constitutional democracy is all about.”
“I have to ask, what is the majority so afraid of? Are they afraid to hear minority viewpoints? Are they afraid to hear that perhaps they're wrong?”
*This story was updated to include additional comments from Lindsey Burke, the chair of the House Democratic caucus
