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A Treatise on Kentucky Magistrates

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Your message was interesting and I would be interested in seeing if you get a response. It does, however, show that you have pretty much the same amount of things to occupy your mind as I do.

You are aware, I am sure that back in the 80's the entire judiciary system of Kentucky was re-organized. That was perhaps that best thing that has ever happened in Kentucky. Prior to that the County Judge actually had judicial power even though most of them were un-educated horse thieves. The magistrates really had very little authority except that whichthey acquired by helping get the judge elected.

Now, there is a County Executive and a fiscal court which is made up of the Executive and the magistrates. Their sole purposeis to manage the fiscal affairs of the county---roads most naturally. The process is still totally political but far better than having the judge administer justice. Now, district courts do that and they have a real judge.When magistrates first came about--and you are right: they have been around longer that the U. S. has been--they were appointed by the governor and their sole purpose was to oversee the creation and maintenance of roads. They did that mostly by paying land-owners to do the work on portions that were near their land. Later, they started doing some other things like probating wills and minor judicial things.Then the County Judge system came about and stopped that. Now, they are back to basically their original purpose. Still, if a certainareaof a magisterial district did notvote for the winning magistrate and/or County Executive, few pot holes will be fixed in the roads there.

Copy of "The History of Knox County" is very interesting

I have a copy of "The History of Knox County" on floppy disc that I got from the Bell County Historical Society. It was written by a very intelligent lawyer from actual court records that were later thrown out. He did a great service in doing that. It is very interesting and lists many, many names. The two biggest positions in the early days were those of magistrate and tavern owners (magistrates were the ones who issued licenses for taverns.) It is full of names. If you think you might have had any relatives in that part of Kentucky, I will make a copy and send it to you. There is no index so the only way to find a name is by simply reading the whole book which is about 200 pages long. I forget now, just what counties were included in "Knox County" at that time, but they would be probably from Harlan over to McCreary. I don't think that Casey County would have been. If I remember correctly from what research I did on the Dickerson name, Casey county camefrom the greater Lincoln County.

"County Fiscal Courts still run by horse thieves"Adair County Fiscal Court excluded, in my opinion - ColumbiaMag Ed

Even though the judicial reconstruction did make the judicial system honorable, the county fiscal courtsare still run by horse thieves. My last job in Kentucky was as Executive Director of the Kentucky River Foothills Development Council, headquartered in Richmond. I had the counties of Estill, Madison, Clark, part of Lincoln and the one where Natural Bridge is and the name of which I cannot now remember. My Board of Directors was made up of the County Executives of those counties and a lesser number of citizens. I can tell you many stories about the---they are still called Judges--executives.

I will tell you just one. After being hired as ED, the outgoing Executive Director took me around to meet all the judges. When we got to the Clark County Court he told me to be very attentive to the judge and his chewing tobacco. We went in and spent about an hour there talking about what was needed and etc. The entire time the judge had his mouth full of chewing tobacco---at one time tucking a little more in his mouth---and at no time did he ever spit.

H

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