I'm Glad To See The Lexington Herald Leader Editor Join My Crusade To Reform The AOC (Administrative Office Of The Courts). Read More Below.

For justice's sake, clean up AOC
Courts agency ethically challenged

In this country, when all else fails, we rely on the court system to deliver justice.

Because the courts are our final refuge against scoundrels, misguided public opinion and human pettiness, we hold them to a higher standard in all things.

And that's why the repeated shortcomings of the Administrative Office of the Courts — which, under the supervision of the chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court, plays a central role in operating Kentucky's courts — are so deeply disturbing.

New Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. must move quickly and decisively to restore confidence in Kentucky's courts.

The most recent problem was laid out in a story by Brandon Ortiz in Saturday's Herald-Leader. In it, we learned that Andrew Scott, a son of Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott, was promoted to a position that involved monitoring accused criminals, including drug addicts, by our court system despite his own pending felony drug charge in Virginia.

The story goes on to compare the AOC's personnel policies regarding pending criminal matters to those of other state agencies and similar agencies in other states, and Kentucky's courts come up short.

There are further concerns, including the fact that, when Andrew Scott was demoted shortly after receiving an earlier promotion, he was allowed to keep his raise.

Andrew Scott resigned after a reporter began making inquiries about his case.

But Scott's departure is almost beside the point.

The point is that episodes like this fundamentally undermine public confidence in our court system. The AOC's secretiveness — refusing to answer questions about whether Scott had notified the AOC of the drug charge, whether he was disciplined because of it, or what role his family ties had in the promotion — further damages the agency's standing.

Secrecy has become something of a hallmark at the AOC, which is exempted from the state's open records law. That's made it hard to sort out just where the money has gone in the $800 million courthouse building spree overseen by former Chief Justice Joseph Lambert.

The most recent embarrassment in that program is the $6 million spent on a new Harrison County Courthouse that is not accessible to people with disabilities.

But there's more.

Lambert's son worked for a time for Ross Sinclaire & Associates, which handled the bonds on more than 68 percent of the courthouse projects. The son's girlfriend was hired for an unadvertised human resources job at AOC.

Codell Construction has gotten the job as construction manager on almost 60 percent of the courthouse jobs. Relatives of the Codell family that controls it and employees of the company have been active contributors to county judge-executives and other local officials involved in deciding the contracts, and have contributed about $3,500 to the campaigns of Lambert's wife, Debra Lambert, for family court judge and circuit court judge.

Lambert retired in June. Minton has promised to take measures to "shore up public confidence," in the building program, including opening more records on the projects to public inspection.

That's a good first step. But the story of Andrew Scott, and those that came before it, dictate that Minton must go much further to eliminate a culture of ethical laxity within the AOC if he's serious about restoring confidence in Kentucky's court system.

Editor's comment: Check out my call for AOC REFORM here.

Hey you my fellow bloggers out there, how about joining the crusade?