The Kentucky House voted 73-14 on March 20 to adopt articles of impeachment for Fayette Circuit Judge Julie Muth Goodman. The articles were based on six cases. Five of the actions Goodman took had already been reversed on appeal; the Kentucky Supreme Court was handling the sixth case to disqualify Goodman.
The House sent the articles to the Senate for an impeachment trial.
On April 6, Supreme Court granted Goodman a supervisory writ, vacated House Resolution 124 and the impeachment proceedings, and barred the General Assembly from taking any further action against Goodman. House Impeachment Committee chair Jason Nemes and House Speaker David Osborne asked the court to reconsider. On September 24, the six justices who participated in the ruling split 3-3, allowing the April ruling to stand.
The House Impeachment Committee said the six cases, taken together, showed something more serious than ordinary legal error. It described a pattern of conduct it believed amounted to abuse of judicial authority and “misdemeanors in office.”
The Supreme Court majority reached a different conclusion. It said the allegations arose from Goodman’s judicial rulings and belonged primarily within appellate review and judicial discipline. The court also found a separate due-process problem: because five of the six cases were still pending, Goodman could not fully defend her decisions at a public impeachment hearing without risking violation of the judicial rules governing comments on pending cases.
That difference shows how the Pattern of Power called “Attack independent institutions” can operate.
Six cases became articles of impeachment
On January 28th former state representative Killian Timoney filed a petition with the Kentucky House of Representatives alleging that Judge Goodman had abused her judicial discretion and authority in six cases. Goodman had overseen all six cases, but Timoney had no connection to any of them.
The cases, now decided, involved significant matters. Judge Goodman dismissed a defendant in a case involving a fatal collision, set aside a jury verdict, ordered the release of a detained prisoner, refused to disqualify herself from representing the University of Kentucky in a case involving her personal interests, and denied the University of Kentucky’s claim of immunity in another case.
In five cases, appellate courts, or the courts that heard the appeals, reversed Goodman’s decisions. The Kentucky Supreme Court ordered Goodman disqualified in the other case.
The House committee that considers articles of impeachment noted that the reversal alone did not justify recommending impeachment of Judge Goodman. In its March 19 report to the House, the Committee said reversals are usually the result of judges disagreeing on a case, and impeachment should not become a means to influence a judge’s decision.
House Representative and Committee chair Jason Nemes, who also sponsored the articles of impeachment, said Goodman repeatedly abused her authority. Goodman was “intentionally wrong,” he said. “This is not a judge who made a mistake; this is something else entirely.” The committee described what it considered repeated abuses of authority and concluded that her conduct constituted “misdemeanors in office.”
The House impeached Judge Goodman on March 20, 2016.
The Kentucky Supreme Court came to a different conclusion.
The court drew a boundary around judicial decisions
The court first identified a procedural error. The Kentucky statute states that a citizen’s impeachment petition must be verified by affidavit. In this case, the petition for impeachment of Goodman lacked verification. The majority of the Court held that the omission was fatal.
However, the Court did a more comprehensive review of each of the six allegations.
It held that each of the allegations arose from Goodman’s exercise of her judicial authority in the cases before her. The Court noted that appellate review corrected five of the challenged actions, and the Supreme Court settled the recusal dispute in the remaining one.
The Court did not hold judges immune from impeachment. The Kentucky Constitution grants the House the impeachment power, and the Senate the power to hold impeachment trials. Judges remain subject to discipline through the Judicial Conduct Commission.
The processes serve distinct functions. Appeals correct judicial decisions. The conduct commission addresses misconduct. Impeachment can remove an official from office.
The majority of the justices held that the Goodman proceedings crossed those institutional lines by using impeachment to address a judge for conduct connected with making judicial rulings.
Justice Shea Nickell dissented. While he also believed that judicial independence is vital, he said that, in doing so, the Supreme Court also crossed a constitutional line by illegitimately encroaching on the authority of the legislature. In that regard, he said, the Supreme Court also lacked the authority to intervene and stop the impeachment process.
The main point of disagreement is the extent of the Court’s power to act in cases where a power capable of removing a judge is used, and whether that power applies to decisions judges make in the course of exercising their adjudicative functions. There is no disagreement as to the power to hold judges to account.
When accountability changes the conditions of independence
An independent court is not a court that is free from correction.
Sometimes, trial court judges are reversed. Sometimes judges. Like all other government employees, they can be disciplined for misconduct. Sometimes legislators can and do criticize court rulings. Normally, those forms of accountability do not result in another branch controlling the judge’s employment or tenure.
The impeachment process can result in a judge losing their job. Judges do not have to wait to be removed from office to feel the consequences of a judicial decision.
Sometimes an adverse judicial decision is taken as evidence to impeach a judge. Then, the consequence of a judicial decision is that the judge becomes subject to the legislative branch’s disciplinary process.
The Kentucky Supreme Court analyzed that effect. The majority said judges needed to be able to decide cases without fear of impeachment because a ruling was legally wrong or an abuse of discretion. Justice Kelly Thompson, writing separately in concurrence, viewed impeachment based on disagreement with judicial decisions as intimidation of judicial independence.
Goodman need not prove that, or any other Kentucky judge, actually changed a ruling due to the proceedings. This is the new kind of risk the judge is facing when exercising judicial discretion.
A judge knows that a higher court can review his or her decision. This is judicial review. If the same decision judges make can also put the judge’s office at risk, then a third branch can exercise its removal power.
An institution’s independence can be compromised without any order being issued concerning it.
The safeguards were already working
The order is significant.
Critics of Goodman’s rulings had many opportunities to review them. Five were overturned. The Supreme Court stepped in to review the recusal dispute. Kentucky has an independent constitutional agency with the authority to investigate and remove judges for good cause.
The House committee argued that the pattern in these cases showed willful misuse of judicial power and authority. Goodman’s case shows that attempts to remove judges can occur independently of attacks on the judiciary.
Impeachment is considered a last resort to remove judicial officers. The Goodman case shows that when impeachment is politically triggered, and other avenues for redressing judicial errors have not been exhausted, judicial independence may be at risk.
Where ordinary conflict ends
Conflict among the branches should not automatically suggest an independent institution is under attack.
Members of different branches of government may criticize each other. Legislators may reject, limit, or criticize courts. Courts may invalidate legislation. Appellate courts may reverse trial courts. Disciplinary bodies may sanction the misconduct of judges. There are normal dividing lines in government.
The main difference is the power being used and the conduct that triggers it.
When judicial misconduct results in bribery, corruption, and other malfeasance that disrupts the proper functioning of government, the institution of the office is attacked. Not all acts by judges are properly subject to impeachment. If that is allowed, every time a judge makes a decision in a challenged case, impeachment can be used to remove the judge from office.
The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the Goodman proceedings crossed that line. Justice Nickell dissented, concluding that the court, not the legislature, had crossed it.
What to look for next time
When officials aim accountability against an independent institution, look first at the conduct being punished.
Are they accused of corruption, criminality, or other misconduct unrelated to the institution’s normal activities? Or is the threat driven by the institution’s exercise of lawful authority?
Next, look at what safeguards exist. Has there been an appeals process? Was there a disciplinary body? Was there a review process? Was there a process to check on the personnel or institution? Did it work?
Ultimately, look at what additional exercise of power changes. Is it intended to correct the misconduct? Or does it risk losing the institution’s independence?
The questions are the same for courts and other personnel who have a normal role to function independently, e.g., Inspectors General, prosecutors, election officials, oversight bodies, and civil servants. The Pattern becomes evident when misconduct in an institution is used to try to gain control over an independent function.
From correcting decisions to changing the next one
The six cases did not escape accountability. Five of Goodman’s decisions were reversed on appeal. The Kentucky Supreme Court also stepped in on the sixth. Kentucky also had a separate constitutional process to investigate allegations of judicial misconduct.
The House, however, went one step further. It took the conduct derived from those cases and used it as the basis for impeachment.
That introduced a different kind of power.
An appellate court can overturn a judge’s decision. A disciplinary body can impose sanctions for judicial misconduct. Impeachment can remove a judge from office.
The Kentucky Supreme Court held that, in this case, the legislature had exceeded the constitutional boundaries in the separation of powers and functions and thereby abused its power. The dissent, however, took the opposite view and held that the court was intervening in the legislature’s own impeachment power.
That division helped clarify the Pattern of Power at work here: Attack independent institutions.
An attack on an independent institution does not have to abolish the institution or order it to produce a particular result.
It can work by changing the consequences attached to exercising independent authority. When decisions that can already be reviewed, reversed, and disciplined also become grounds for removal by another branch, the institution operates under a new source of power.
Five of Goodman’s rulings had already been reversed. The Supreme Court had already intervened in the sixth. Impeachment was not needed to correct those decisions. It placed the office of the person who made them at risk.
That is how an attack on an independent institution can reach beyond one judge and one set of rulings.
Once removal becomes a possible response to exercising judicial authority, the pressure no longer stops with the decision already made. It reaches the independence of the next one.
Sources
Supreme Court of Kentucky. Julie Muth Goodman v. Jason Nemes, et al., Nos. 2026-SC-0122-I and 2026-SC-0124-OA. Opinion and Order originally rendered April 6, 2026; modified and petition for rehearing denied September 24, 2026.
https://law.justia.com/cases/kentucky/supreme-court/2026/2026-sc-0122-i-0.html
Kentucky House of Representatives, House Impeachment Committee. Report and Recommendation for the Impeachment of Circuit Court Judge Julie M. Goodman, 22nd Judicial Circuit, in Fayette County. March 19, 2026.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/CommitteeDocuments/397/44109/REPORT%20OF%20IMPEACHMENT%20COMMITTEE%20-%20JUDGE%20JULIE%20GOODMAN-MARCH%2019,%202026.pdf
Kentucky General Assembly. House Resolution 124, 2026 Regular Session. Adopted March 20, 2026, 73-14; received in the Senate March 24, 2026.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26rs/hr124.html
Kentucky Court of Justice. Judicial Conduct Commission. Description of the commission’s constitutional disciplinary authority, complaint process and available sanctions.
https://www.kycourts.gov/Courts/Pages/Judicial-Conduct-Commission.aspx
Kentucky General Assembly. Constitution of Kentucky, Section 68: Civil officers liable to impeachment.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/Law/Constitution/Constitution/ViewConstitution?rsn=74
Kentucky Lantern. KY Supreme Court declines to reconsider case of Fayette County judge. September 24, 2026.
https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/09/24/ky-supreme-court-declines-to-reconsider-case-of-fayette-county-judge/