Viral Judges

Christine[00:00:00] You know, human relationships don't come with instructions. Not to hit someone.

HughYeah. Well,

ChristineI don't know.

HughYeah, don't punch your orchid.

ChristineLOL.

ChristineAll right. Welcome to the Judgmental podcast. Today we are gonna give our opinions and breakdowns of our investigation. That happened on Monday. We went to five different divisions. Obviously, we're gonna do the viral clip and then we are gonna pick some stories to follow out of Louisville Family Corps. Let's get right into it. Y'all wanna watch the viral clip?

HughAlright. I've heard this speech before,

Christineright?[00:01:00] I do.

HughYeah, we do too.

ChristineOh my word. What do you think?

HughIt's obnoxious. I I don't understand the, the life advice that, that judges sometimes give. I mean. I, it's not violating anybody's rights. You're no. Speaking to someone who has obviously been involved in a domestic dispute of some sort.

ChristineIt's very performative.

HughYeah, it's performative. I agree. You're, you're, you know, the camera is on there. You're trying to be funny for [00:02:00] camera, which , I think has, I think that's a whole different discussion that I have. I have more issues with. In this instance, I just find it a little obnoxious.

ChristineIt's also like the thing about what the victim of the domestic violence, and we can say victim because clearly he's pled guilty. What would they think if they're watching that? Like, oh, you destroyed the last orchid, but the next orchid, if you just treat it right. You know what I mean? That's not really how domestic violence works. Like if you're a per of domestic violence, you're a perp of domestic violence unless you have therapy

Hughfor treatment. Well, regardless of that, if I'm a victim and I'm watching that and you're just saying. Get an orchid. If you can do that, you can have another relationship. LO. I don't know if that just seems to. Belittle what really happened A little bit. Yeah. That's how I would take it if I were the victim , in that circumstance,

Christine100. And this is a judge outta Texas and I've watched a lot of her stuff. And I just do think that a lot of it like is time consuming. I don't really know that she, one, has the training to be given this [00:03:00] kind of advice, and two, that it's appropriate for a court of law and to keep the docket backed up. But I think so many of these judges just wanna be Judge Judy.

HughNow what training would be? Is it botany? Is that a Master gardener certificate?

ChristineYeah, I think she just thinks this will go viral. Like I really think that she thinks if she knows she's on recording, she knows that a lot of her videos get released on TikTok and other avenues. I don't know if she's doing it. Her staff's doing it. Or if it's a, I would

Hughreally like to know that.

ChristineYeah, it could be a local TV station. 'cause we had judges that were doing that here at one point, the child support docket. And so if like right now you and I are speaking knowing we're being recorded, right? Sure. Like it certainly changes the dynamic. And I would never want the judge to be doing that if the, it was my case before the court. Like they shouldn't be worried about what an audience is gonna say.

HughI agree. I would find that to be problematic if I were sitting before the court on even a minor traffic issue. Traffic issue if I knew that there was something [00:04:00] going on besides judging my case.

ChristineAnd adjudicating my case, I would

Hughhave an issue. I would have an issue with it.

ChristineYeah, and I think that that's kind of the stuff like we talk about the TikTok judge. We're not gonna go into her too much today. It's like too much clout for her anyway. But the notion that she's hearing pain and thinking that that will be a viral moment, this judge here is trying to create this viral life lesson. Like, oh, you know, just get an orchid and I'm gonna be famous on TikTok. I would love to talk to some Harris County attorneys to see how her docket runs, what the viewpoint is from constituents. And the viewpoint is from lawyers. So anyone in Harris County, Texas shoot us a DM or comment on this video.

HughYeah. I would imagine if this is happening all the time, it slows the docket down somewhat. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and if you're gonna choose some advice to give that you hope to go viral. Is it really gonna be orchids and domestic violence

Christineand ice cubes? I mean, I think that's what they say. I put ice cubes in my succulents, like, which is weird. I know an orchid's not a succulent, blah, blah, blah. But [00:05:00] I just think that was so bizarre. I think she was saying like, you can't, I, you have to read the instructions. But you know, human relationships don't come with instructions. Not to hit someone.

HughYeah. Well,

ChristineI don't know.

HughYeah, don't punch your orchid.

ChristineLOL. Anyway, well, we were down in court yesterday, five divisions. Honestly, let's just start off by like, I think we were both a little cranky,

HughPart there, there were multiple reasons for my crankiness. One is, it was strange to be over there. It has not been, but just a few months since I. Left the full-time practice. Mm-hmm. And first impression was, I forgot how, how it smelled over there in court. That wasn't great. You were

Christinesaying that.

HughYeah. I, I just, it all came back to me. So , it was strange sitting inside those courtrooms. It was yeah. Brought back a lot of memories of sitting there. Long days of family practitioners. Generally, especially if your office isn't downtown and you can't walk back to your [00:06:00] office between motion hour and get a break. Yeah. Division one starts at 9:00 AM Division 10 starts at 10 30, so one 30 I was, yeah, I said 10 30, 1 30 and doesn't usually finish till 2, 2 30. Sometimes later, depending on how big the docket is. And because people show up late. Yeah, the later you get in the day, because the ones prior to that one have run over, so the judge is constantly waiting on people, so it tends to run longer. So you're really over there all day. And if you don't have. Anything going on, or your case gets called early in one and you don't have anything for two more motion hours. You're just really sitting down over there, down there seeing people that, you know, listening to other cases. Mm-hmm. But just trying to find something to do to pass the time or get a little work done from the back of the courtroom.

ChristineYeah. And there was just something about like, when I was even getting ready to go to the courthouse, I had this like twinge of anxiety that I haven't had in a minute. And you and I have been going down to do these judicial roll calls. Mm-hmm. And like I didn't really have that. It was weird. So when I was driving down, I got a text message from an [00:07:00] attorney , and I talked to tons of attorneys, but it was like, I love it when you come to court. And I'm like, what? I'm in my car. And there was someone that was utilizing my name in division six and for listeners. There are 10 divisions. We decided to hit five this week. We're not gonna spill when we're gonna hit other ones, but we can't do all 10 in a day. It's too much. No, it's too taxing. But, so yeah, I got to division six. You should have seen, this is Christine Ward. You should have seen her face when she saw me. 'cause she looked and then she was like, she looked over at the Zoom, which I would've too. I'm not judging her for this, but Who y'all was using my name?

HughYeah. That was strange. And we had people sending that to us who were sitting in the courtroom. And saw clearly that, that Christine was in the courtroom. And had seen her there and we're sending her texts with a picture of, you know, the, or screenshot from Zoom that somebody is using her name , and yeah,

Christineit was crazy. And I wonder too, like my first inclination was like, oh my gosh, is this like a setup? Is a judge trying to do something bad, but, or like, is someone in the system? But I think that's just generally maybe my [00:08:00] paranoia and, 'cause this person didn't do anything that I saw, they didn't turn their camera on, they just had the name Christine Miller. Which, granted, it's a relatively common name, I guess, but,

Hughwell, . We stayed for most of that docket. And that person didn't have a case on, or No,

ChristineI even looked at the docket. There was no Christine Millers. There was, yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting though, because Miller, back in the day when we allocated cases by last name, Miller would've gone to Christine Ward. So if I would've got divorced in Jefferson County, Christine Ward would've been my judge by my last name.

HughOh, that's interesting. Yeah, so we don't do

Christineit by last names anymore. They used to

Hughbe division nine.

ChristineReally? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Thank goodness gracious. That would've been Miss Gina Calvert back in the day. So we saw some good, some bad, but it was, again, I'm two and a half years out. I look at stuff very differently. I feel like I try to. Look at it from just like a bystanders. Mm-hmm. You know, and then I could see you in there, like making notes and like doing stuff like grid legal argument or like, stuff like that. Yeah. So what did you [00:09:00] think were some good stuff?

HughI was still thinking from an attorney point of view, so I was, I just found myself drawn to the legal arguments that were being made more than the rulings. Mm-hmm. At first I, I sort of had to do sort of , a change of perspective while we were sitting over there. I heard some good legal arguments. Mm-hmm. Some jurisdictional arguments, some arguments over whether or not a counsel to a party in a family court action can ask for a restraining order within that action rather than filing a separate action. There were, there were some interesting things that you typically didn't see. Mm-hmm. Every week in motion, hour before, so I found that to be interesting. There were also things that I saw all the time that clearly continue to happen over

Christinethere. I thought that the most positive thing for me was Laura Russell, division nine. I thought she had amazing courtroom control. Extremely prepared.

HughYeah. She knew what was going on in the cases when she called them. She was very professional to everyone, even if they were very [00:10:00] frustrating to her. Mm-hmm. She was patient, she was super efficient, super, and moved through that docket. That was, yeah, I agree that, yeah, definitely the most impressive thing for the day. And just

Christinefor listeners, I got a lot of personal attacks and backlash. I did not endorse her for judge. I endorsed her opponent. And this is where if you've been following along, the Reddit post came. But you gotta give credit where credit is due, and I will tell you that she handled that docket extraordinarily well. Yeah, , she did state too, that she was gonna get orders out within two to three weeks, and she was very clear, which I liked. Like on one case you'll rely, like you might remember, she said. It'll be two to three weeks. And on another one she said that I'll get it a week after the final person. And I'd love to hold her to account for that, but I have no reason to doubt that she will do it. I just thought it was really,

Hughhad no reason to say it otherwise. Yeah. I mean, you're really setting yourself up to say those things. Mm-hmm. If you're not gonna do it, I, I was impressed.

ChristineYeah. Yeah. That was definitely the highlight of the day. We had, well, what was your word? What was your best, I guess just the legal arguments. Oh,

HughI

Christineactually, [00:11:00]

HughI thought. There were several arguments that Judge Ward did a very good job of differentiating between, here's what I can do at motion hour. Here are the things we have to do for a hearing, you know, telling counsel. I understand. Okay. We need to set that for a hearing. We're I'm, we're not gonna argue facts and have a hearing, hearing motion hour. Is the way that it should be. But so often it doesn't happen that way. And

Christineyeah. And in Kentucky we do motions very different than a lot of states. Yep. And so you file a motion, it goes to a blanket motion hour, which is always on Mondays and you, there's a half hour to an hour allocated, but usually you're up there talking to the judge from anywhere from one to. Six minutes at the most. Really? Mm-hmm. I mean, possibly 10, but the judges shouldn't do it like that. And so you just go and it's usually pretty quick. And so you thought that was a good thing from Christine? Did she had some weird, complicated cases on

Hughthat day. Yeah, I agree. I don't know how, they were just odd. I'm not sure how complicated they are, but they [00:12:00] were things that obviously. She didn't see that often, and I didn't see that often. I didn't know, I didn't know off the top of my head what the easy answer was on any of them. So I guess they are, they're more complex than usual, but they, it was, it was bizarre. There were a couple things that. I had to sit up and take notice and I had to ask you, wait, are they arguing over this?

ChristineRight? Well, the one that, and it was right before you got there, that Florida case. I wanna follow that case. I talked about it, yeah. Essentially it seems to be there is a family with one child and there are three potential places where actions, legal actions are taking place. We've got. The actual divorce or custody action in Louisville, Jefferson County. Mm-hmm. There is a domestic violence criminal charge out of Bullitt County, Kentucky. And then one of the parties has allegedly fled to Florida allegedly escaping domestic violence. And there is not a fleeing statute in Florida. According to counsel for one of the parties. And what that means is that typically, if you come to Kentucky fleeing domestic violence, you can get a [00:13:00] protection order here. Yes. Right. So there's also CPS in Florida based on these criminal allegations here. And Florida is saying, don't send the kid back. And then we had Christine Ward saying This child needs to be back in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Within one week

Hughshe has jurisdiction. It's, you know, she, , it's incumbent upon her to make sure that that child doesn't become someone else's jurisdiction while this is pending. So she has the ability to do that. I don't think, I didn't get the feeling she was ruling one way or the other on any of the underlying facts.

ChristineYeah. It sounded like they had a hearing for September. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't appear from. To me that there has been any sort of hearings, like of substantive or watching any of, if there are any videos or recordings or photos. And so I wonder, I wasn't clear on the ruling, like the child, I was clear that the child needed to be back in Kentucky by next week. Mm-hmm. But I wasn't clear if the court was gonna give the child to the other parent with the alleged DV

HughNo, , I didn't get that. I didn't get a, a feeling one way or [00:14:00] the other about that. I think it was just. The child needs to be in this jurisdiction till we sort this out,

Christinewhich if you're fleeing domestic violence, it, you know, it's just complicated. It's, I think it's something to follow and this shows. What can happen when you get numerous jurisdictions or courts involved because at a minimum right now we've got a Louisville judge, a Bullitt County judge. Sure. And CPS out of Florida. Yep. So that's three people with their hands in the pot

Hughwell, that's true. And, and the ruling wasn't that I'm making all the decisions here, it was just the child needs to be back in Kentucky, first of all. And I think also. If there's going to be a conference of judges with competing jurisdictions, there need to be some orders set. It seemed like she was setting the ground rules that okay, it might end up in Florida. There may be some protections here. The judges, we need to talk. Right now the order is bringing the child back, and now we've got something in writing, especially if they're at an early stage in the case that someone can take to Florida and say, here's the ruling that we have, but here's why this happened.

ChristineIt's interesting to [00:15:00] me the, from like a pragmatic in the system, not necessarily the legalities, but we, I heard no testimony or argument that the party that has to come back has a place to reside in Kentucky. I mean, if there's domestic violence, certainly that person can't go back to the home.

HughNo, I agree.

ChristineThere was no testimony as to whether or not that person, you know, had any family here. So that is. When you're making these decisions. That's just something to follow. I also want everyone to understand the nature of these motion hours is that it's quick. We aren't doing an in-depth thing. We wanna get your opinion so we can follow certain cases and do more research. Sure.

HughNow, this one was just interesting because it had so many moving parts. Mm-hmm. And it seemed like we were hearing about it and hearing what was going on at the very early stages of it. Yeah. So it would be something that we could follow, I think with jurisdiction. Clearly kids aren't objects. Yeah. Yeah. But looking at a court's jurisdiction over the, what it's going to rule on the child [00:16:00] or whether it's a car. If you're having a dispute over a car and someone takes off and goes to Indiana with the car from Kentucky while that dispute is going on, it would not be outta the ordinary at all for a judge to say that car needs to be back here in the state of Kentucky. It and. I certainly don't mean to imply that Judge Ward looks at children and treats them like property, but from a court point of view, this is what you have jurisdiction over. This is before you, you've accepted jurisdiction over this case 'cause it's moving forward in your courtroom. The child needs to be here in order to exercise that now. Certainly. If there is a protective order or there's been findings of a court with competent jurisdiction that there's been domestic violence, I'm sure that that would affect the ruling and what Judge Ward would go forward and do.

ChristineBut how would you get those findings if you don't have a fleeing statue in Florida? And obviously there's not gonna be anything. You know, in the criminal case. Now that being said, this goes back to the whole big debate about family court in general as a court of equity. But if it's gonna be a court that operates under the [00:17:00] rules of procedure, the rules of evidence in the exact same way that a circuit court or district court would, then there needs to be this check and balance with juries. You know, you can't have your cake and eat it too. And I think sometimes that's what family court decides to do. And I hear the legal argument of it and I don't know the answer to it. I just think it's one of those where we can't like prescribe in the law how to address this family that's clearly in crisis.

HughWell, I agree. I don't know that I don't, this is just one of those things where I think the courts are. The last place you would want to deal with family issues. Mm-hmm. It's a place of last resort. It needs to be, and there are shortcomings that I'm not sure there's an easy solution for. Yeah. I think a fleeing statute is not the only way that jurisdiction could be found in Florida. I mean, U-C-C-J-E-A sets forth some ways that jurisdiction could be found on an emergency basis in Florida. I imagine I'm not trying to interpret Florida laws

ChristineI don't know the residency requirement. Well,

Hughno, no, I'm just, [00:18:00] I, I've regular leasing judges get very defensive over their jurisdiction when it appears that someone might be going and trying to forum shop. If you're truly escaping domestic violence, that's not what you're doing. Mm-hmm. But people do it all the time. People that for instance, if you're in a divorce and you live in a separate, you, you have residences in two states, you're gonna pick the state that is. Most beneficial for you? , The laws are more helpful for your side of the case and judges. Oh, absolutely. See that all the time.

ChristineYou'll see celebrities constantly fighting over California and Florida.

HughWell, I trying to

Christineget residency for divorces.

HughPeople would come to us and we would run their names through the court system in the state in Kentucky and the states surrounding it, and it was. Fairly rare, , but not nearly as rare as you would hope that we would run it and find that people had gone to other counties and filed mm-hmm. And not, and were moving forward. Oftentimes claiming they couldn't serve or didn't know where the other party was, even though they clearly did, they were just looking [00:19:00] for a different judge. They didn't like a ruling or. They wanted to be in a county where they might have some family to stay with, but the other side would, it would be very hard for them to travel court and, and we would see that

Christinewe have a, in Kentucky actually. Every county has jurisdiction over a divorce. Mm-hmm. Even if you don't live there. Mm-hmm. It's just not the appropriate venue form which jurisdiction would come first as far as the test goes. So a lot of people will file for divorce in a different county. Yep. Especially if it's uncontested. And the reason for doing that is just to kind of hide it, you know what I mean? Just have to

Hughbe staying there for Yeah, for the moment. I don't even think you have to stay there.

ChristineNope. I think that I filed for divorce in Old County. My divorce was filed in Olden County and I've never lived there. Thank you. Judge Goodwin, LOL I digress. Anything else about that?

Hugh, I had a client one time who came in and was having trouble with, and I can't remember if it was insurance or something else, and found out that someone had married him, he was married. To a crazy [00:20:00] ex who had, had somebody stand in for him, pretend to be him, forge his name and gotten a marriage certificate,

ChristineLOL. And so that is hysterical.

HughAnd then she had gone into court. I don't remember if she'd gone into court to divorce him, even though they were never married. He was married to his longtime wife and had kids and all of this stuff. And so the woman who had fraudulently married him was then getting orders within family court. Against him, can't make it up. And he came in for something else and we ran his name and discovered all of this stuff and had to untangle it all. Can you imagine finding out that someone had married you? I mean it was invalid of course. Obvious 'cause he was already married, but there were, there were so many problems with that.

ChristineYeah. One of the craziest cases I have when I was a public defender was a guy charged with bigamy and they did a persistent felony offender 'cause he was a felon from something else. He was a convicted felon and I was just like, we are not p oing, which PFO enhances the sentence. I'm like, we are not p oing a bigamy charge. Okay. That is [00:21:00] ridiculous. But they wanted to go forward on the bigamy charge be, it's a long story, but it was eastern Kentucky and I, in my opinion, they were targeting the guy. But I digress.

HughSo in, you mentioned in Eastern Kentucky they have. Press in the courtrooms in motion hour.

ChristineAbsolutely. Every motion hour that I ever went to in Montgomery Circuit Court, bath Circuit Court. I think now Montgomery for sure, , we would have a local reporter sitting there in the courtroom and just taking notes.

HughWow.

ChristineWhich I thought was just common. I mean, it would be common for reporters to come up to me and try to ask me questions. Even in small counties like Bath County, if they had something salacious on, or Menifee County, or certainly Morehead, I believe Morehead, they had more press 'cause Morehead's a little bigger. But yesterday we were effectively the press that were in court. And how many stories do you think we could have done on five different courts?

HughOh. Probably at least two or three From each court. [00:22:00] From what? From , the times we were there. Mm-hmm. We were not there for the entire motion hour of each one because they tend to run over. Yep. Each one runs over. We would go to the next one. Mm-hmm. So we didn't even, I don't believe we viewed one single entire motion hour. Mm-hmm. Because we had to then go onto the next one, but at least two to three per court.

ChristineI wrote down, 'cause I was just taking notes on things I thought people would. Find interesting and I had 14 cases and I think all 14 of those cases we could have done something with. And it's so perplexing to me why the local media doesn't come in there. And some of the stories would involve something that I think we'll be able to follow up on next week and get the answer to the reporting. And some may take three years, but there are just stories for days. I mean, for example, just the judge not swearing the interpreter in. I mean, that's so simple and so simplistic, but like, so,

Hughso is that your worst? Thing of the day.

ChristineThis was in Judge Denise Brown, TikTok, judge, , I thought her division was the most frustrating for me 'cause it was very evident it was packed [00:23:00] because she'd canceled motion hours in July and it was clear as day that she hadn't read. And she wasn't prepared for court. And that was my opinion. I mean, she was flipping through the pages, like she always does. I was just thinking if we played a drinking game with every time she flipped a page, it would be like Super Bowl Sunday, every Monday. You know what I mean? And there was obviously cases that were called that she was just like, when she saw us there, you know, she was like, I'm gonna recall this case. 'cause she had no idea what was going on, in my

Hughopinion. Well, I, I thought it was, it was very clear. The judges that, that understood what was going on in each case that they called. Yep. And they would call them in order. They sometimes wouldn't even look down at the paper. They knew which attorneys were on it. They, they were prepared for the arguments mm-hmm. That were gonna come up. And sometimes the judge would start and say, I understand this and that, but. Here's what I think we need to address today. And it was clear they knew what was going on in that case. Mm-hmm. And in stark contrast, in other divisions, the judge would call a case, figure out, ask who's on that case? So is everybody [00:24:00] here? They get them up there, and then basically it was a blank slate and you'd be arguing and there would be no, no prep whatsoever on it, which would mean. It would take longer. Mm-hmm. The attorneys would have to give all of the background before making their arguments and then there'd be the page flipping and reading through things and, it was just very different how they prepared

Christinetotes. I would say Derwin Webb, he does a new protocol for how he calls cases. I loved it. I thought it was , it was perfect. It was very similar to what they do in Mass, but it was kinda like a roll call, first call. Everybody knew. Mm-hmm. He, he seemed prepared. And Laura Russell nine in 10. We're ready to go. I would say to be fair, to Judge Ward in six, I didn't see the beginning of motion hour. Mm-hmm. She did seem prepared though, in the things I saw,

Hughand some of those cases were just a little different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Than normal. The ones that we sat and watched were not your ordinary cases , and the attorneys actually came up and sat at the tables Yeah. As if you were having a hearing because you were really getting into some, some, some different legal arguments and that they weren't.[00:25:00] Sworn in. They weren't having factual hearings. They were actual legal arguments. It was proper for motion hour, but it was just clear that they were a little bit more complex Yeah. And involved , than the typical stuff that you do up at the podium.

ChristineThat's so true. But I, I mean, she's typically prepared for the most part. Okay. But I would say it was clear that seven and eight were not prepared.

HughOh eight was my low point. I think. It's hard to pick. I think , the part that that was a low point for me was just because of what I had experienced so much. In my practice, and that was a judge asking the friend of court what they think about motions before they give their opinion a rule on something. So friend of court is they're not an attorney representing someone. They are a witness. They are there to prepare a report, a factual report, not make legal conclusions. At motion hour, people are bringing legal motions. You're not hearing factual issues. If you're going to hear factual issues, you have a hearing

Christinewith what?

Hugh[00:26:00] What do you mean sworn testimony? Well,

Christinewell,

Hughthat, that was the very close second for the, for the low point. Not, you know, having an interpreter there and not swearing the party in at first, and then ne finally realizing the air and never swearing an interpreter in. But when people are making legal arguments at motion hour, that's purely not fact-based. The fact that a judge would be deferential to. A friend of the court or want to know what their opinion is on the fly, not having filed a report, not having anybody have the opportunity to review that report and their notes to know what would into the report. Mm-hmm. But just basically an unsworn witness to advise the judge while standing there. That, that bothers me. Yeah. That's one of the things I think is most broken in the system. To her credit, , the one that I'm thinking of that was the worst, actually said, this is not something that I'm, you know, I'm FOC on this case. This doesn't pertain to anything. That true. You know, I'm, I'm really working on, , I shouldn't have an [00:27:00] opinion on this. Yeah. And that's correct.

ChristineAnd I don't think the judge, he didn't seem to be aware that that was the proper, you know, call on that. Yeah. I don't know why he defers to them so much, especially after how much he's been kicked by the court of appeals. Yeah. Agreed. Also the two cases, right, that weren't there.

HughOh, yeah. You, you had mentioned page flipping. This was, we saw cases being called this was also in division eight cases would be called, and he would mention, oh, they didn't send the case file up from downstairs. I just have, and I forget what they call it. There's just a mini version of Just a placeholder. Yeah. With the case name and the information, but not the case file. And so he would have to. Call it again later and send someone to get the file, which begs the question, how could you have read the motions and looked at it if you don't have the case file?

ChristineYeah. Also, how could you have

Hughprepared for motion hour if , you're, you're finding out on the bench at motion hour that you don't have the case file to review. Literally for the arguments.

ChristineAlso, the, his motion [00:28:00] hours at 1230, it's like after lunch, you know, like you didn't prep for the day and what did he have maybe five, six cases to be called? Like you think you'd be like, I need to make sure I have all the cases to be called, you know, here on my cart. Yeah. I don't know.

HughEspecially, you know. I'm wondering, and it's hard to tell when, but sometimes , when a judge indicates on the pre rulings for motion hour to be signed, it means, I agree with this motion, I'm gonna enter it unless somebody objects. Mm-hmm. I would've liked to have known if someone objected to a case and he had to call it, if any of those would be missing. Oh, I be bet. 'cause how do you decide that you're going to sign a tendered order? Mm-hmm if you don't even have the case.

ChristineAlso, we had been to 5, 6, 7 and they didn't have any missing files. So it was just perplexing to me how this was an eight issue and there were no missing files and nine and 10 at least that we saw. No, that I recall.

HughNo, I agree. I just, it's hard to see how someone can be prepared for those motions if you don't even have the file to look at them.

ChristineYeah, and I do think this [00:29:00] goes back to are they reading the motions? And I think it was personally clear to me that in division seven and eight, they hadn't read the motions that they were ruling on and not all of them.

HughYeah, , it was very clear which ones had uhhuh and it was also. They cleared, they went through their docket and it was just like clockwork. Mm-hmm. It keeps the attorneys from having to give the background and get into factual recitations. And when you are reciting facts as an advocate, you're going to recite them in a way that's favorable to your client. Yep. Which is going to beg for

Christineback and

Hughforth and back forth and forth, back and forth. The other side, well that's not my version. And when you start getting into that, then the motion hours take for they take a long time. Mm-hmm. And you just get into factual arguments. That's not what you're there for, right? You're there to, to argue legal things, do procedural things, and then get hearings on anything that needs to be decided factually.

ChristineYep. And one of the attorneys in Division eight also said, your Honor, I filed our motions, so any motion that goes on in motion hour has to be filed by the previous Tuesday. [00:30:00] This attorney said, judge, I filed a reply. I filed it on Thursday. Have you read it? And he was like, Nope. Which just what are we doing here? It's a waste of the client's money. If we're gonna have a motion hour where the motions and the replies haven't been read and the file's not up there, and they're probably being billed for that motion, depending on how long it is. The motion hour appearance, at a minimum, that's $500, and that is a minimum

Hughnow in Circuit Court. Is the deadline still noon on Thursday? For filing the motions, do you know? No, no, no. It's much later than in family court.

ChristineOh, oh. Family court. Motion hours and circuit. I have no idea.

HughYeah, I mean, they, so Thursday, you know, filing response on Thursday or would not even be that late over in circuit court. Now I completely understand when attorneys will file a response to a motion on Monday morning. Before court.

ChristineNo shit. And then

Hughthe judge hasn't seen it. Of course they haven't seen it. And if I ever had to do that because someone failed to notice me on a motion and I had to file it last second, , I would take the [00:31:00] response to the court so they could look at it at motion hour, because I wouldn't expect them to see it. But if you filed something, you know, a day and a half after the motion was filed, you kind of expect that I would, as a judge, expect that anyone that has a motion filed against them. I always filed responses to motions.

ChristineSometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. But bigger picture, it's just, there's a blatant difference in filing it before the week. Period is over and the same day. Sure. But Thursday, if he's not read it, I mean, it's just a waste of the parties, but I digress. Lastly, let's just briefly talk about, we talked about the hierarchy of attorneys, GALs, FOCs, and judges, right? Mm-hmm. Judges on the top. We saw all the FOCs GALs just hanging together.

HughYeah, that's laughing. Sitting at the front of the court waiting to be appointed the same handful of people, in fact, I believe it was three. Three. Mm-hmm. For the second half of the day in Jefferson County, it was three people sitting up at the front waiting for those appointments and getting all of those appointments [00:32:00] and getting referenced on, you know, a third of the cases that were called, they would stand up and sometimes get questioned about , their position on a case. Now, if you're a GAL, that's. Proper, you or an attorney representing a party. You may have a position on a certain motion, but still again. FOCs, I don't understand why they're standing up at motion hour , and giving their opinion to a court.

ChristineWell, I don't understand why they have superiority for the judge. They're just lawyers. I understand that they're getting this immunity now. Lawyers in Louisville, obviously we've got , really, nothing but positive feedback. We had attorneys like following us out, following us around. Mm-hmm. Like I had so many text messages yesterday, but there are two in particular, GALs and FOCs that. Lawyers, you need to be careful about speaking to us publicly because there are two that will go back and publicly say positive things about the judges on Facebook and likely tell the judges who you're speaking to. Yes, sir. And so I would be very, very careful. There's likely a third one, but we will keep up on that and we will try to figure out a way to [00:33:00] figure out how many of these appointments, these GALS, FOCs are on because it's likely paying their mortgage these appointments, and then some.

Hugh\\Becomes your full-time job, I think. Mm-hmm. Or it should, if you're taking as many appointments as some of them do, it really should be two full-time jobs.

ChristineYeah. And y'all please, we're starting the new investigative series. We broke it down to each division. Go watch each division and if there's a case on a fact pattern that you like, tell us so we know which ones that you want us to follow. Keep telling your stories to judge y.com and follow at judging the judges on YouTube and Instagram. Thank y'all. Thanks.

Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. We need some. Justice. Justin found justice.