Circuit judge who signed Breonna Taylor search warrant only one to face election challenge

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Showing the power of incumbency, only one of the 17 Jefferson Circuit Court judges seeking reelection this year has drawn an opponent.

The lone incumbent to face a challenge is Judge Mary Shaw, who signed the warrant in March 2020 for the search in which Breonna Taylor was killed by police after her boyfriend fired one shot within her apartment that struck an officer.

The two candidates who filed against Shaw, attorneys Tracy Davis and Christine Miller, declined to say why they decided to challenge her.

Shaw initially was criticized, accused of rubber stamping warrants for five raids on the night Taylor was killed, but the detective who obtained them, Joshua Jaynes, later was fired for lying on an affidavit to get them. Jaynes has sued to get his job back.

Shaw, who faced death threats after Taylor was killed, said opposition can be expected for an elected position and declined to speculate on why she was the sole incumbent challenged. She was first elected in 2006 and reelected to an eight-year term in 2014 with no opposition.

The filing deadline for judicial races was Tuesday. Every seat is up for election except for three on the Kentucky Supreme Court.

None of the 10 Jefferson Circuit Court judges who serve on Family Court drew a challenger, and only two incumbents in District Court seeking re-election face opposition.

Experts on judicial races say incumbents have greater name recognition based on their years of service and easier access to fundraising including from attorneys who appear before them.

Women rule in Jefferson County courts

Regardless of who wins, local courts will continue to be dominated by women.

Counting all rungs of court, 52 of 72 judicial candidates in Louisville are female, including 25 of 30 candidates vying for District Court.

The Courier Journal in 2019 reported that male judges were in danger of becoming extinct. Women then held 32 of the 40 judgeships and had vanquished men in 15 of the last 17 head-to-head judicial races.

Some scholars say it's because voters often know little about judicial candidates and resort to stereotypes to make their choices — including the notion that women will be more honest and have higher integrity on the bench than men.

Others say female voters are more likely to vote for women, while men split their votes.

But criminal defense lawyer F. Todd Lewis, who is running against two women and three men in a crowded race to succeed Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman, who retired, says he rejects the notion that people are “blindly voting for women over men.”

“I think women have been strong and motivated candidates, they’ve run very good campaigns, they’ve worked hard, and they’ve offered something appealing to voters … that a lot of traditional male candidates have overlooked,” he said in an email.

“Maybe a few of the men who were voted off the bench in the past need to consider how they carried themselves toward others — toward attorneys, litigants, support staff, co-worker judges, etc., and ask themselves whether they didn’t contribute to their own undoing."

Louisville Metro Councilwoman Jessica Green was appointed Wednesday by Gov. Andy Beshear to replace McDonald-Burkman until the election.

In races with three or more candidates, they will run in the May 17 primary; if there are only two, they will meet in the general election Nov. 8.

At the top of the judicial ballot, Circuit Judge Angela McCormick Bisig, is facing family lawyer Jason Bowman to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the retirement of Justice Lisabeth Hughes.

Four Louisville lawyers have filed to run for the Court of Appeals seats being vacated by the retirements of Chief Judge Denise Clayton and Judge Irv Maze.

Circuit Judge Audra Eckerle and criminal defense lawyer Tricia Lister are running for Maze’s seat, while District Judge Annette Karem, business litigator Stan Whetzel and McKenzie Cantrell are vying to replace Clayton.

Eckerle, who has raised more than $64,000, about three times as much as Lister, drew attention at the beginning of the pandemic for electronically “muzzling” often combative attorney Rob Eggert, who practices with Lister.

Eckerle says in her bio that she and her husband have two Irish Setters named Felony and Misdemeanor, as well as two donkeys, three goats and a bunch of chickens.

Karem recently proposed, then withdrew a court scheduling plan she said was designed to cut through a backlog of cases but which defense lawyers said would have denied defendants the right to a timely arraignment.

Two district judges — Julie Kaelin and Jennifer Bryant Wilcox, are seeking to move up to the circuit bench; Wilcox has no challenger, while Kaelin, a bail reform advocate who has drawn fire from police for setting low or no bonds, faces Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Ebert Haegele.

Three lawyers are hoping to fill Ecklerle’s circuit court seat. They are Ted Shouse, a prominent criminal defense lawyer, Melissa Logan Bellows and Critt Cunningham.

In another three-way race, to succeed Bisig, Tish Morris is trying to follow in the footsteps of her father, the late Judge Geoffrey Morris, who died in 2020.

She faces Zack McKee, a family lawyer, and Dorislee Gilbert, a former prosecutor and director of the Mary Byron Project, which advocates for victims of domestic violence.

Judicial salaries in Kentucky

• Kentucky Supreme Court justice: $142,362

• Court of Appeals judge: $136,631

• Circuit judge: $130,926

• District judge: $118,372

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Breonna Taylor case: Judge who signed search warrant opposed