FRANKFORT — The chair of the Senate Impeachment Committee filed a resolution Tuesday evening that if adopted would pause removal proceedings against a Lexington judge.
Before Senate Resolution 297 was filed, the chair, Sen. Brandon Storm (R-London) said the impeachment committee would meet Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., which is the last scheduled day of Kentucky’s 2026 legislative session.
Earlier this session, the House forwarded articles of impeachment against Fayette Circuit Judge Julie Muth Goodman to the Senate. However, after she filed an appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment had violated the separation of powers among the state’s branches of government and ordered it halted.
The Supreme Court said the Judicial Conduct Commission is the proper venue for complaints against judges that do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
Storm’s resolution calls upon the Judicial Conduct Commission to hold “public proceedings” to review allegations of misconduct by Goodman that the House and Senate have collected. The resolution is also “asserting the constitutional authority of the General Assembly with respect to the impeachment power.”
The resolution says that while no member of the Senate was a party in Goodman’s lawsuits “the Supreme Court nonetheless purported to enjoin the General Assembly from any further proceedings regarding the impeachment of Judge Goodman and purported to order the General Assembly to dismiss the impeachment against her.”
The resolution stresses that the Senate reserves the right to remove Goodman from office.
“The suspension of proceedings at this time does not constitute a decision or judgment on the House of Representatives’ Articles of Impeachment against Judge Goodman, nor does it constitute any relinquishing of the right to do so under the proper circumstances in the future,” the resolution says.
The Supreme Court’s majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Debra Hembree Lambert, said the impeachment petition against Goodman was flawed on several fronts and the Kentucky Constitution does not give the legislature “unfettered authority to conduct unconstitutional impeachment proceedings based on the mundane, discretionary actions of a judge that are within the exclusive authority of this branch to address,” as the state has “co-equal branches of government.”
Speaking to reporters Tuesday evening, Senate President Robert Stivers criticized the Supreme Court ruling saying the justices had “reached some type of conclusion” and disregarded the General Assembly’s “inviolate” power over impeachments. The Manchester Republican issued a statement last week saying the Senate was aware of the high court’s opinion “and is carefully reviewing its implications.”
Stivers said that, in agreement with the House, the Senate plans to “delay” its process and see if the Judicial Conduct Commission will review the case. He added that throughout the process, he became aware that attorneys were “afraid to file” claims against a judge to the JCC.
The commission, which was created by the Judicial Article adopted in 1976, has the power to discipline judges. The JCC’s decisions can be appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
“The rules governing the JCC require confidentiality during the investigation process,” the commission’s website says. “If a complaint results in a hearing, the JCC provides the judge under review with the information compiled during the commission’s investigation, including the name of the person who filed the complaint, if relevant.”
Asked if the Senate would have still taken that action without the Supreme Court ruling, Stivers said it never “entered into the situation” but rather the legislature found out about the Judicial Conduct Commission proceeding against Goodman.
“It would have been better on everybody if the courts had taken care of this issue themselves,” Stivers said. “What I know now is you’ve got a commonwealth attorney, you’ve got a former county attorney, you’ve got various people who have notified us and they want to come here and testify. Hopefully the JCC does the same thing.”
The impeachment petition against Goodman was filed by former Republican state Rep. Killian Timoney, who is seeking reelection to a state House seat. Some of the cases at the center of Timoney’s petition are still pending in courts.
Though he has not made many public statements on the matter, Timoney said in a Tuesday Facebook post that he had not made the decision to file the petition “lightly” but had done so on behalf of the family of Tammy Botkin, a woman who died in a 2020 hit-and-run in Lexington. Botkin’s widower, Doug Botkin, briefly gave testimony against Goodman in the House committee’s hearing. He said that he and other family members were shocked when Goodman dismissed charges in the case and an appeals court later reinstated the charges.
“These impeachment proceedings matter. They seek accountability and they send a message to Tammy’s family, and to families across Kentucky, that their voices matter and that justice will not be cast aside without scrutiny,” Timoney said. “They reaffirm a simple but essential truth: the rule of law must be upheld, and those entrusted to carry it out must be held to the highest standard.”
Read Sen. Brandon Storm’s resolution
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