SCOKYBLOG assumes that anyone inclined to check in on this blog will already be aware of the unfortunate news that broke late yesterday that Justice William McAnulty has (from all reports extremely reluctantly)resigned his seat on the Kentucky Supreme Court. In a week or so, after this news has sunk in, SCOKYBLOG will ponder some of the “what does this mean?” questions. For now, however, we’ll just say that we’ll miss seeing Justice McAnulty on the bench and we look forward to the day when he’s back in a position of prominence in the Kentucky legal community.

Although SCOKYBLOG’s mission involves close scrutiny of the SCOKY’s Justices’ public lives, SCOKYBLOG believes that the private lives of the Justices should remain private. And, after becoming aware this Monday of Mark Turner v. Dee Riley, et al., Fayette District Court Case No. 07-C-02359, SCOKYBLOG’s initial belief was that there was not a substantial public interest in this forcible detainer action. Now, of course, traditional media outlets, including the Associated Press, have made the decision to run the “story,” which, much like a self-fulfilling prophecy, has pushed the story into the “public” sphere. Although SCOKYBLOG maintains its belief that the “story” remains afield of our personal mission, but because SCOKYBLOG’s EiC has received a couple of back-channel emails inquiring as to why SCOKYBLOG has not mentioned the lawsuit, we have made the decision to post this piece observing that the Lexington Herald-Leader and perhaps other area newspapers have run this story.

SCOKYBLOG would observe that, although named as a Defendant in the forcible detainer action, which was filed on March 28, 2007, Justice Scott has apparently not been served with process.

Professor Paul Salamanca and former SCOKY Justice James E. Keller have recently published a piece in the current issue of the Kentucky Law Journal that addresses the Court’s 2006 decision in Woodward v. Stephenson. The article, ‘The Legislative Privilege to Judge the Qualifications, Elections, and Returns of Members,’ 95 Ky.L.J. 241, is a lengthy (144-page, just-shy-of-900-footnote) critique of the SCOKY’s decision in last year’s highly-publicized decision in a case involving the qualifications of a State Senator elected from Louisville.