They are of what is perhaps the lowest-profile oversight organization in Kentucky.
They have no identifiable office, and no full time staff. They meet in secret. Until this year, their telephone number hasn't even been listed in state directories. It's (606) 233-4128.
They are six people -currently four men and two women - on the state Judicial Retirement and Removal Commission. There are always three judges, chosen by their peers; a lawyer picked by the Kentucky Bar Association; and two laypeople named by the governor.
They meet monthly in Lexington to review complaints against judges, trial,master and domestic-relations commissioners, and judicial candidates.Complaints may be mailed to: Executive Secretary James D. Lawson, PO Box 21868,Lexington, KY 40522-1868.
By Supreme Court Rule, the commission's work comes into public view only when it imposes certain types of discipline.
The commission members are Chairman Joe C. Savage, a Lexington attorney; Circuit Judge Stephen Frazier of Paintsville; Court of Appeals Judge Paul Gudgel; Jefferson District Judge Charles Scott; Diane Logsdon Elizabethtown; and Brenda Williams of Columbia

The High court has often second- guessed the Removal and Retirement Commission.

This is the Kentucky Supreme Court's test for overruling the Judicial Retirement and Removal Commission: Unless the commission's findings are "clearly erroneous," they must stand. Since 1978, however, the court has modified or set aside commission rulings in six of nine cases it has considered.
One involved seven special justices appointed to hear Supreme Court Justice Dan Jack Combs' appeal of his suspension for campaign violations. Combs' suspension was overturned on the grounds that it violated his free©speech rights.
In the two most recent cases, Justice Charles Leibson entered stinging dissents, arguing that the court exceeded its authority.
The commission "is not constitutionally created simply as an advisory board for this court. Yet we continue to treat it so,"Leibson wrote last November in the case of former District Judge Kay Doyle, who had been suspended by the commission, for violations that included misleading campaign ads in her unsuccessful 1991 race for circuit judge in Knott and Magoffin counties.
The court's majority disagreed that some of the ads constituted ethical violations. And it reduced Doyle's suspension to a reprimand.

In the other case, the court overturned the commission's censure of Circuit Judge Richard L. Hinton for his actions toward an attorney in a Mason County murder trial.
Leibson said the court had no right to overrule the commission simply because it disagreed with the commission on Hinton's conduct. To do so, Leibson said, rendered the: commission "a toothless tiger."
Commission Chairman Joseph Savage said its members do not feel impotent as a result of the court's decisions. "They haven't made us shirk doing what we think is right."
But Savage said he likely would vote differently in a future case like Hinton's, "because the Supreme Court said it was no violation." Savage also said the court's rulings in the Combs and Doyle cases made it harder to determine what campaign rhetoric is unethical.
"In the Doyle case, what we thought were pretty clear-cut violations, the court said were not," Savage said. "I think that will allow judicial campaigns to become more aggressive. And I don't like that."

RESULTS OF COMPLAINTS AGAINST KENTUCKY'S JUDGES AND COMMISSIONERS

 

     complaints:dismissed:retired:resigned: 

     public censure: private censure:removal:suspended 

                                                                  
        

93-94: 174  : 172  : 0  :  0  :  3  :  1  :  0  :  0 

92-93: 157  : 150  : 1  :  1  :  2  :  1  :  0  :  0 

91-92:  NA  :  NA  : 0  :  0  :  1  :  4  :  0  :  0 

90-91: 149  : 144  : 0  :  0  :  0  :  1  :  1  :  0 

89-90: 157  : 151  : 0  :  0  :  1  :  1  :  0  :  0 

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