By Adam Hinton
District judicial debate highlights key issues
On Thursday, October 10, at 11:30am, the 16 candidates for the eight contested Jefferson County District Court seats came together for the first, and possibly only, time to participate in a Judicial Debate.
The debate, sponsored by the Women Lawyers Association of Jefferson County, the League of Women Voters of Louisville, and the National Council of Jewish Women, was organized in part to focus attention on the District Court races, which traditionally take a back seat to the likes of the congressional and senatorial races.
While called a Judicial Debate, the event was more of a question and answer session. When the candidates for a seat took the stage, they were first given one minute each to introduce themselves. Following this, each candidate was asked a separate question, predetermined by a panel of both lawyers and non-lawyers, and given two minutes to answer the question.
Unfortunately for the candidates, the question selection ranged from some that were very in depth and difficult to what Judge Sean Delahanty later called “puffball questions;” questions that have one uniform answer that every candidate would run off.
In the 3rd Division District Court race, Mr. Claude Prather presented himself as the traditional right-wing, “tough on crime” candidate. During the debate he claimed that “a big problem in today’s society is the single-parent family,” and also that Jefferson County needs to “get tougher on juvenile offenders.” His opponent, Judge Henry Weber, took the exact opposite position, proclaiming that we needed to “get to the core issues and see why juveniles are ending up in the system in the first place.”
Kentucky State law requires that for a minor to appeal to the court for an abortion, they must be deemed mature first. Candidate Pamela Rochester, running for a seat in the 6th Division District Court, was asked what she considered mature to be. Following about 30 seconds of awkward silence and a muse or two about that being a difficult question for her to answer, she declined to answer.
Perhaps displaying himself as the most competent of all the candidates was Mr. Robert Florio, campaigning for a seat in the 23rd Division District Court. As opposed to the other candidates, who answered about one-third of their questions before bridging it to another topic, Mr. Florio actually formulated direct and clear answers to the question presented to him. When asked how he would “ameliorate the effect of the high number of continuances” in the court, Mr. Florio immediately presented that he would lead an initiative to increase funding to the KY Crime Labs, which are “sorely underfunded” and whose backups generate a large amount of the requested continuances.
Another hot topic for the debate was the Family Court amendment, which will appear on the ballots in November. This proposed amendment to the state constitution will determine the fate of the Family Courts, which are separate from the District Courts and were established in 1991 as a pilot project. Should the amendment fail to pass, the Family Courts will be abolished and the cases will be reintegrated to the District Courts.
Candidates for the Jefferson County District Court seats and their respective divisions are: Paul Gold and Judge Hugh Haynie in the 18th Division, Paula Sherlock and Judge Joseph O’Reilly in the 21st Division, Michael Stevens and Judge Paula Fitzgerald in the 1st Division, Judge Henry Weber and Claude Prather in the 3rd Division, Judge Sean Delahanty and Pamela Rochester in the 6th Division, Jonathan Dyar and Judge Sheila Collins in the 10th Division, Judge James Green and Angela Bisig in the 12th Division, and Judge Judith Bartholomew and Robert Florio in the 23rd Division.
