Pro-Trump Republicans impeach a judge because they 'don’t like' her

The Washington Monthly reports the Republican super-majority is taking President Donald Trump’s lead in putting independent judges under Republican control.

Trump has called for the impeachment of judges when he disagrees with their decisions, creating the “kind of partisan screed against the independent judiciary that has infected Trump’s presidency, undermining the public’s faith in judges and the rule of law,” said Washington Monthly reporter Joshua A. Douglas. “Unfortunately, in Kentucky, lawmakers are taking it a step further by impeaching a judge simply because they do not like her rulings.”

“Kentucky law allows ‘any person’ to initiate an impeachment proceeding against a state judge. In January, a former state legislator who lost reelection two years ago and is seeking to regain their old office filed an impeachment petition against Julie Goodman, a state trial judge,” said Douglas. The petition alleges that Goodman ‘abused her office’ based on her rulings in six cases in which she allegedly violated statutory law and refused to follow precedent.

But Douglas said the petition “says little” about what makes [the judges'] decisions an impeachable offense, other than getting reversed by an appeals court. The highest profile of Goodman’s cases is the 2023 prosecution of Cornell Denmark Thomas II, who was charged with wanton murder in a car crash. Goodman dismissed the case, believing that Thomas, who is Black, was overcharged because of his race.

The state judiciary already has an internal process and guardrails to contain judges who allegedly violate their ethical responsibilities in a proceeding, said Douglas. Nevertheless, last week, the Republican-super-majority Kentucky House of Representatives voted to impeach Goodman, mostly on partisan lines.

Douglas points out that there have been only 15 impeachments of federal judges in U.S. history, with only eight convictions by the U.S. Senate. In every example, the impeachments involved abuse of the office in some way, like bribery, not disagreements on case or whether or not you like the judge. And there have been only two instances in the past few decades of a state legislatures impeaching judges. One involved drug abuse by the judge, and another involved the judge seeking outside counsel from a friend on a case.

Seventy Kentucky lawyers signed a letter pushing back on the impeachment, arguing that the issue is about “separation of powers, equal branches of government, and judicial independence. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also weighed in, warning the impeachment “can create a chilling effect,” and might herald other petitions being filed “by parties that didn’t get a ruling they wanted.”

These are only some of the opponents of the impeachment who critics say lawmakers are seeking Goodman’s removal “because (they) don’t like her rulings.”

“The legal community should denounce impeachment based on disagreements with specific rulings as an improper political weapon,” argued Douglas. “Removing a judge because of their decisions undermines the rule of law, ultimately harming democracy.”