Friday, June 03, 2016

Jessamine County Attorney fires back at judge who attacked Matt Bevin in open court

Jessamine County Attorney Brian Goettl filed a complaint against Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd today for calling a proper and legal executive order by Gov. Matt Bevin "like a neutron bomb."

"The language chosen by Judge Shepherd more closely resembles the remarks of a partisan, political operative yammering on incessantly on the 24/7 cable news cycle than a respected member of the bench," Goettl said in his complaint filed with the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission, which Goettl asked to issue a public reprimand of Judge Shepherd.

In his complaint, Goettl compared Shepherd's actions to those of former Attorney General Greg Stumbo in his attacks against former Governor Ernie Fletcher.

"Judge Shepherd's remarks seem to fit that political strategy, whether he intended them to or not, in that they fed the Democratic narrative and the news cycle of a news organization whose editors openly oppose Governor Bevin."

The Lexington Herald Leader published an Associated Press article about Shepherd's remarks under the headline: "Judge: Bevin's executive order is like a 'neutron bomb'."

"The Frankfort spin machine runs like this all the time," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "The difference this time is Jessamine's County Attorney Brian Goettl is protecting the public and the rule of law better than this rogue judge and these leftist reporters who didn't see any bombs going off when Gov. Beshear abused his executive order authority four times to saddle us all with his ObamaCare mess."