Latest news with #JeffersonCountyAttorney'sOffice
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mike O'Connell will not seek reelection as Jefferson County attorney. Who he's endorsing
Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell will not be running for a fifth term. O'Connell was first elected in 2008 and is the longest-serving county attorney in Jefferson County in at least 120 years. In a press release, he announced his intent to retire when his term is up at the end of 2026. 'Frankly, there has never been a day at the Jefferson County Attorney's Office that I wished I was working somewhere else,' O'Connell said in the release. 'It has never happened. I have great affection and respect for the office and its people.' More: Jefferson County Sheriff John Aubrey will not run for an eighth term O'Connell also announced his support for Sarah Martin, his office's second assistant and head of the civil division, in next year's race. 'The County Attorney's Office is too important to retire without a sound path forward,' O'Connell wrote. 'This is not a position that can be filled by just any attorney.' "It requires a specific skill set and our community understandably has high expectations of professionalism and hard work that I know Sarah Martin can meet,' he continued. 'That is why she has my full support to lead this office into the future.' O'Connell is known for his landmark Kentucky Supreme Court cases: Commonwealth v. Wilson and Commonwealth v. Carman. He's also been heavily involved in suits against opioid distributors and manufacturers — bringing $840 million to Kentucky, with $60 million going directly to Louisville. He said he sees the funds as a tribute to his son Matt, who died in 2014 after an overdose. He was named Outstanding County Attorney of the Year in 2017 by then-Attorney General Andy Beshear and was a recipient of the Center for Women and Families Public Service Award. Martin joined the Jefferson County Attorney's Office as an assistant county attorney in 2008, serving as lead attorney for Louisville Metro Council. She also tried the city's first hate crime case while serving as a civil rights attorney for the Human Relations Commission. Martin announced her candidacy in a separate press release on Thursday. 'I have proudly served this community for nearly 17 years as an Assistant County Attorney as both a prosecutor and a civil attorney,' Martin wrote. 'This experience makes me uniquely qualified to run this important office. I love this job and see every day how the Jefferson County Attorney's Office impacts our community." Reach reporter Keely Doll at kdoll@ This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell will not seek reelection in 2026
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supervisors split in reimbursing Jefferson Sheriff
FAIRFIELD — The county will reimburse the legal expenses incurred by Jefferson Sheriff Bart Richmond, after the sheriff tangled with the Jefferson County Attorney's Office in court over his placement on a list of officers with questionable credibility. The list is known as the Brady/Giglio list, named after two U.S. Supreme Court cases regarding information prosecutors must provide to defendants in criminal trials. If an officer is on the list, it means prosecutors would need to disclose information about what led to the placement to defense counsel if the officer is listed as a state's witness. A district court judge in February found Richmond did not lie and thus his placement on the list was not warranted. After the ruling, Richmond asked the county to reimburse his legal fees to date. County Attorney Chauncey Moulding has filed a notice of appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. The issue first came to the board two weeks ago, but was tabled as supervisors looked into the legality of a potential reimbursement and to see if the county's insurer would cover the cost. On Monday, Jefferson County Board of Supervisors Chairman Lee Dimmitt said the payment couldn't be covered under the county's insurance policy, but he did believe supervisors could approve the expenditure given Iowa Supreme Court opinions regarding public fund expenditures. The Iowa Constitution requires expenditures to be for a public purpose, but Iowa's top court has held that purpose should be broadly defined. The longstanding precedent cited in multiple cases that finding an expenditure doesn't meet a public purpose must be so "clear and palpable as to be perceptible by every mind at first blush." Dimmitt believed that precedent gave the supervisors room to legally reimburse Richmond's legal fees to date. "I do believe in reading that, we have some flexibility regarding how we define it as a public purpose — or if we define it as a public purpose," Dimmitt said. "I would also add that if public funds were expended ... to remove the ability of the ... sheriff ... to perform all of the duties and responsibilities of the office, therego it would seem we could use public funds to restore the ability of the sheriff to perform all of the duties and responsibilities of the office. I don't think they are mutually exclusive of each other in those terms." Supervisor Joe Ledger reiterated his calls for the "hours and dollars spent on this issue' be presented by the county attorney's office, and said he felt it was important to support Richmond. "At this time, I'm in support of Richmond — we've got to get behind our county employees," Ledger said. "And this is just a place where if we don't support our county employees how many more is gonna wanna pull out because we don't have support." The vote to approve the reimbursement was 2-1, with Supervisor Susie Drish opposed. "There's no statute to authorize payment of these fees under current law," Drish said as she voted no. Dimmitt acknowledged the county's budgetary challenges, and worried what would happen if legal expenses continued to climb. Supervisors have no authority to stop Moulding's appeal as long as he stays within his office's approved budget. "Evidently, County Attorney Moulding feels strongly enough about this — whether I agree or disagree — to move forward with it," Dimmitt said. "I can't stop it. I wish that I could, but I can't." Moulding was not at Monday's meeting. The supervisors had pondered whether to make it a one-time reimbursement, or to cap the amount they will reimburse. The final motion was simply to approve the request before them now. "This is a very difficult decision for me to make, anyway, because I can see both sides of the equation,' Dimmitt said. "I'm not willing, personally, to look at an unknown quantity. I can't do that. And the reason I can't do that is because we just talked this morning about not filling a position out at the roads department. ... "What if it goes to $100,000, where am I supposed to get it? Out of [the sheriff's] budget? Does that cost a deputy his job or her job? Those are not hypotheticals here. If we were to have to find $100,000 somewhere, that is a difficult search to have." Ledger said the taxpayers he's spoken to in recent weeks have indicated broad support for the reimbursement to Richmond. "Over the past two weeks, I've been in contact with numerous county taxpayers who believe that we should support Sheriff Richmond," Ledger said. "Several comments were that this appears to be a personal attack on the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department." The Iowa Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether it will hear Moulding's appeal, and their timetable for making that decision is unknown. Moulding has previously challenged the constitutionality of the process Richmond used to challenge his placement on the Brady/Giglio list, which used a new law that took effect July 2024 to establish a judicial review process. Moulding placed Richmond on the list in June 2024 for what he dubbed an obstruction into a use of force investigation. Judge Jeffrey Farrell said that while Richmond could have been more responsive, he was not dishonest and the conduct did not rise to the level necessary to warrant placement on the Brady/Giglio list. "There is no evidence in this case that Richmond was dishonest or did not tell the truth," Farrell wrote. "The problem is that he was nonresponsive to Moulding's emails and hesitant to provide information to the Keokuk County Attorney during her investigation. "The court has no doubt this entire case could have been easily avoided if Richmond had simply provided basic and professional responses to Moulding's emails." Federal and state cases have generally "required a showing of deceit, deception, or dishonesty," Farrell wrote. Additionally, Farrell noted details about Richmond's conduct would not likely change a jury's decision if disclosed.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Yahoo
Dismissed: Homeless woman cited for street camping while in labor cleared of charge
This story has been updated with information from a motion to dismiss and a comment from a prosecutor in the Jefferson County Attorney's Office. A Louisville judge has dismissed charges against the woman Louisville Metro Police cited for unlawful street camping while in labor. The incident, first reported by Kentucky Public Radio in December, garnered national attention and public uproar. In body camera footage, the woman told Lt. Caleb Stewart her water had broken. Stewart called in an ambulance for her but also proceeded to charge her with unlawful camping for having a mattress beneath an overpass. 'Am I being detained?' she asked at one point while trying to walk away. 'Yes, you're being detained,' Stewart said. 'You're being detained because you're unlawfully camping.' Jefferson District Court Judge Karen Faulkner dismissed the woman's case during a large docket of unlawful street camping citations in court on Wednesday. Susan Ely with Jefferson County District Court said there are plans to have a specialized docket for unlawful street camping citations once a month, with some exceptions. There will also be service providers available, she said. Providers were present at the docket on Wednesday. Kentucky legislators passed a law making unlawful street camping offenses a Class B misdemeanor during the 2024 General Assembly. Since the law took effect in July, police have issued more than 40 citations in Louisville and its suburbs, with most issued in the city's downtown area. Public defenders representing the pregnant woman called the street camping law "unconstitutional" in their motion to dismiss the charges. "The explicit criminalization of not just sleeping outdoors, but also the mere intent to sleep or 'camp,' which is defined broadly enough to encompass sitting on a mattress, encourages exactly this sort of cruel and arbitrary enforcement," the motion reads. "It is an unconstitutional exercise of the state's police power." The attorneys requested the court declare the street camping law unconstitutional. However, when the charge was dismissed, it also stopped the woman's challenge of the law. Erin White, the criminal division director for the Jefferson County Attorney's Office, agreed to the motion to dismiss without objection. "We take each case individually, we evaluate the evidence, and we believe the just decision was to dismiss this case," she said. When the pregnant woman's story first came out in December, the Louisville Metro Police Department said it supported its officers using their discretion. "We support our officers in using discretion and the information available to them at the time in making decisions," an LMPD spokesperson wrote in a statement to the media. "We also understand everyone may not agree with those decisions, but we are committed to being transparent in communicating and explaining processes and policy to the community." Later, Chief of Police Paul Humphrey told WAVE-TV that an "error" was made in issuing the woman a citation. "Lieutenant Stewart's reasoning was he felt like she was using a medical condition to get out of enforcement action, shows after the fact that she wasn't," he said. "That's an error that was made based on sound reasoning. It just happened to be wrong." Reporter Marina Johnson contributed. Reach reporter Eleanor McCrary at EMcCrary@ or at @ellie_mccrary on X, formerly known as Twitter. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Street camping charge against pregnant Kentucky woman dismissed
