FAYETTE COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — A Fayette County circuit judge is asking the Kentucky House Impeachment Committee to dismiss a petition seeking her removal from the bench, arguing the petition is legally deficient, lacks a required sworn affidavit, and amounts to an unconstitutional attempt to overturn the will of voters.
Judge Julie Muth Goodman, who has served on the Fayette County bench since 2008, filed a formal response to the impeachment petition on Feb. 23, through her attorneys. The petition, dated Jan. 28, 2026, was signed by Killian Timoney and centers on Goodman's rulings in six cases.
Goodman's attorneys argue the petition should be dismissed without further action for at least five separate reasons, any one of which they say is independently sufficient to end the proceedings.
Goodman's attorneys say that Under Kentucky law, a petition for impeachment must be verified by the petitioner's own sworn affidavit. Timoney signed the petition but did not include a notarized or sworn affidavit, making the petition void under rule, her attorneys added.
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"Without an affidavit from the petitioner, this petition is effectively anonymous and does not meet the requirement for being signed by the person submitting it," the response said.
The attorneys also note that Timoney does not appear to be a resident or voter in Fayette County and has no documented connection to any of the nearly 72,000 cases Goodman has handled during her 18 years on the bench, documents read.
The House Impeachment Committee has previously dismissed petitions on similar grounds. In 2021, the committee summarily dismissed impeachment petitions filed against the governor that also reportedly lacked affidavits.
In addition, Goodman's attorneys argue the petition fails to identify any conduct that would constitute a "misdemeanor in office" as required by Section 68 of the Kentucky Constitution. They say the petition amounts to nothing more than disagreement with Goodman's judicial rulings.
"Impeachments are intended to address only serious abuses by public officials — not disagreement about exercises in discretion," the response said.
Kentucky's history of judicial impeachments is limited. Only two judges have been impeached or recommended for impeachment in the state's history, and the last instance was more than a century ago. Both involved conduct far more serious than disputed rulings, according to the response.
Goodman's attorneys warn that allowing the impeachment petition to proceed would have an effect on judicial independence statewide, discouraging judges from deciding difficult cases or causing them to make rulings based on which outcome is least likely to trigger an impeachment petition, the documents noted.
"All litigants and the public deserve judges who keep both eyes trained on the just disposition of the case," the response said.
Her attorneys argue the petition, filed by someone with no connection to Fayette County and no personal knowledge of the cases involved, seeks to overturn the democratically expressed will of voters.
The response asks the committee to dismiss the petition and recommend that the House of Representatives take no further action.
