Back on November 11th, I posted a piece here about Kentucky family court judge Tamra Gormley.  Judge Gormley had been suspended from the bench for 45 days due to her blatant denial of rights to a couple of litigants in family court.  She denied one father, from whom she'd just taken custody of his children, the right to put on any evidence on his own behalf.  At the time, I speculated that those two cases were just the tip of the iceberg about Judge Gormley.  My experience in Texas has been that, when a judge is disciplined, the reasons given are just a small part of the total.

This article lets us see some of the rest of the iceberg in Judge Gormley's case (WLKY, 12/28/09).  This time, in a 5-1 ruling, the state's Judicial Conduct Commission reprimanded her for issuing a blanket order back in May that no employee of Toyota Motor Manufacturing could have a child support order modified until the end of the year.  She made the order effective in all three counties over which she has jurisdiction even though it was only requested in one county.  She rescinded the order in July.

Now, why a judge would issue such an order is beyond me.  Even if Toyota hadn't planned to lay anyone off in May, it just doesn't make sense to issue such an order.  Almost anything can happen in individual cases and a judge has to consider each one on its merits.  In custody modification cases, he/she has to take testimony and other evidence, weigh it and make a decision about whether or not to change the order.  To issue a blanket order with no evidence on individual motions to modify, many of which had not even been filed back in May, borders on the pathological.  It is just very strange.

Apparently the Judicial Conduce Commission thought so too.  I wouldn't be surprised if they're setting Judge Gormley up to be removed permanently from the bench.  Back in November she looked like a judge who thought she was above the law.  She looked like a judge with a very low regard for the rights of litigants.  Nothing in this most recent disciplinary ruling changes my mind about that. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Family Law.