Courtroom

HARRODSBURG - Proceedings in Mercer Circuit Court were interrupted Tuesday morning as screams penetrated the closed doors of the second-floor courtroom and caused Judge Darren Peckler to pause on the bench. Bailiffs rushed from the courtroom and other courthouse personnel from their offices toward the shrieks, which had come from the first floor. They expected to find some sort of trouble, but instead discovered a smiling group of women huddled in the hallway. "We're really sorry," said one of the women, Allison Leonard, 32, an exotic dancer at a Lexington club.

If Tuesdays' hearing in the Jack Caldwell Sr. murder case was a TV show, it could have been described as part courtroom drama and part medical drama with a cliffhanger ending. The hearing, to determine if the sickly, 82-year-old Caldwell is physically able to stand trial, left Boyle Circuit Judge Darren Peckler undecided on whether to move forward or order another physical examination of Caldwell. Peckler said he will issue a written ruling at a later date. Peckler's orders, dating back to April, to have a physical evaluation performed on Caldwell at the Kentucky State Reformatory apparently weren't followed.

LC Fiscal Court meeting The Lincoln County Fiscal Court will hold its regular meeting on Thursday, Dec. 27 at 9 a.m. in the upstairs courtroom of the courthouse, 102 E. Main Street, Stanford. Chamber has throws The Lincoln County Chamber has throws on sale for the holiday season. They are available in forest green, maroon, and colonial blue and cost $40. The throws are available at the Chamber office, 201 E. Main Street, in the Buzz Walker building. Call 365-4118 for more information.

STANFORD - An observer with a notebook went to the Lincoln County Judicial Center recently to watch Family Court Judge Debra Lambert in action. The small basement courtroom was packed with parties in typical family court cases: child support, custody battles, domestic violence protection orders. Emotional stuff, to be sure, but nothing on that July morning's docket stood out as especially newsworthy. It was just an opportunity for the reporter, unannounced, to see how the controversial Lambert presided over her courtroom.

It was a cold January night in 1991 and Bill Noelker was on the U.S.S. Saratoga in the Red Sea on the eve of Operation Desert Storm, pondering his future - wondering if he was going to have one. "I was an ensign and a brand new pilot with absolutely no combat experience, as green as I could be," says Noelker. "And the next day I was going to be flying alone in my single-pilot F-18 Hornet on a mission to help protect the U.S. fleet in the Gulf of Akuba by shooting down any threatening Iraqi planes in my sight.

LIBERTY - A judge denied bond reduction requests for two of the men charged in the murder of Gleason Pyles, in part because of concern that their connections to an outlaw motorcycle gang would allow them to be spirited away and avoid prosecution if they were released from custody. David Salyers and William Bobby Rigdon were sent back to jail under $1 million bonds after Casey Circuit Judge Judy Vance rejected their requests to have their bonds reduced, saying she believed they are a flight risk.

A Nicholasville woman is behind bars after allegedly threatening two attorneys and Jessamine Circuit Judge Janet Booth Monday morning. Sheri Moses, 44, has been charged three counts of terroristic threatening, a Class D felony, punishable by 1-5 years in prison on each count. "The threat was if her child got locked up, everyone would die, and she would blow up all their houses," Nicholasville Police Officer Scott Harvey said. Moses was booked into the Jessamine County Detention Center where she awaits pretrial.

LANCASTER - You be the judge. Accompanying this story is a picture, taken Thursday, of Kirstie Arnold wearing the same shorts and shirt she wore to Garrard District Court last month. If you were on the bench and Arnold appeared before you so dressed, would you think it inappropriate? Disruptive to the proceedings? Would you find her in contempt of court? Throw her in jail? For Garrard District Judge Janet Booth, the answer to those questions is "yes. " Booth sent Arnold to jail on Aug. 18 because of the way she dressed for court.

Dru Hall not only displays her nursing expertise in the delivery room but also in the courtroom. Hall, who heads the women's health unit at Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, has become a respected and often-called-upon expert witness - usually for the defense - in malpractice cases involving OB nurses throughout Kentucky and also in Tennessee. "A lot of people around this area know of my work in obstetrics and in women's health, but my work as a witness in obstetrics-related malpractice cases isn't that well known," said Hall, a registered nurse.

Boyle County Sheriff LeeRoy Hardin used to worry that he wasn't doing enough to keep the courthouse secure. The grace of God was the only thing that had prevented his home turf from being the scene of some grisly shooting spree or bomb blast, he said. Now, in the wake of last week's thwarted plot to allegedly gun down a family court judge, an attorney and a woman involved in a volatile divorce case, Hardin has a new set of concerns. Boyle Circuit Judge Darren Peckler has ordered Hardin to beef up security outside the circuit, district and family courtrooms by placing deputies with hand-held, metal-detecting wands to screen people as they enter.