EDUCATION: Lexington Theological Seminary 2003-PRESENT
Lexington, Kentucky
Archabby of St. Meinrad 2003-PRESENT
St. Meinrad, Indiana
University of Kentucky College of Law 1969-1972
Lexington, Kentucky
Awarded Juris Doctorate
University of Kentucky 1964-1969
Lexington, Kentucky
Awarded Arts Law Bachelor of Arts
Paul G. Blazer High School 1961-1964
Ashland, Kentucky
Emphasis: College prep
PROFESSIONAL
EXPERIENCE: LICENSED LAY MINISTER 2002-PRESENT
First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Ashland, Kentucky
COMMONWEALTH'S ATTORNEY 1993-PRESENT
32nd Judicial Circuit
Catlettsburg, Kentucky
ASSISTANT COMMONWEALTH
ATTORNEY 1987-1993
Catlettsburg, Kentucky
PRIVATE PRACTICE 1981-1987
Ashland and Catlettsburg
ASSISTANT COMMONWEALTH
ATTORNEY 1977-1981
Catlettsburg, Kentucky
CITY PROSECUTOR 1976-1977
Ashland, Kentucky
PRIVATE PRACTICE 1972-1975
Lexington, Kentucky
PUBLICATIONS: "A Dream of Farell", included in I Thought My Father Was God,
©2001 Henry Holt and Co. Also appeared on National Public Radio in October, 2001 as part of the "Great American Story Project"
Microcomputers for Lawyers, ©1983, TAB Books (Dutch translation, microcomputers voor juristen, ©1985, TAB Books)
STRAIGHT TALK, ©1989, Bantam Books
(Text by Charles Bowen, programming by me)
SMARTER TELECOMMUNICATIONS, ©1985, Bantam Books (with Charles Bowen)
"Slice and Dice Basic", appearing in September 1981 issue of
"80 Micro" magazine
"Towne Crier BBS" series, appearing regularly in "80 Micro"
magazine (with Charles Bowen)
"Tooling the Network Nation in your Snazzy 100", appearing in
September 1983 issue of "Portable 100" (with Charles Bowen)
Various reviews as staff reviewer for "80 Micro", and "Autoharp Quarterly"
BIG SANDY BURIALS, self published
THE JAMES STEWART FAMILY, self published
"Towne Crier BBS" software
"Straight Talk" and "Double Talk" terminal software
"Docket Control" software
PROFESSIONAL
ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Early in the 1970's, I served as staff attorney for the Central Kentucky Child Advocacy Council, bringing free legal representation to indigent children in central Kentucky. This was a cutting edge project, and one of the first to offer such service. I'm very proud of our work.
When I was first appointed to the office of Commonwealth's Attorney in 1993 by Governor Jones, I determined, from my prior experience in the office, that the victims of crime were not being well served by the current prosecution model, which viewed victims as merely witnesses in an action brought by, and controlled by, the state. I instituted the first office of Victim's Advocacy in Boyd County history, and directed the Advocate to make the voice of the victim heard in all prosecution matters. That model has since been followed statewide.
In the office of Commonwealth's Attorney, I was aware that the sexual abuse of children was an under-reported and poorly served area of the law. I joined with Hon. Lloyd Spears, then the Commonwealth's Attorney in Greenup, my wife, Kathy, and other community leaders to fund and build Hope's Place, an advocacy center for abused women and children. Hope's Place substitutes a friendly, home-like atmosphere for the necessary examinations in such cases in place of a long wait in the ED. Hope's Place hired and made available to victims of sexual crime pediatric gynecologists and forensically trained S.A.N.E nurses, so that even trace evidence could be recovered.
Finally, to bring the greatest scope of expertise to the problem of sexually abused children, I formed and chaired the Boyd County Child Advocacy Team, a multidisciplinary team approach including the schools, law enforcement, prosecution and social work resources. The CAT team also functions at Boyd County's Child Fatality Team.
Within the office, I saw the case load explode from 100-110 indictments per year in the 1970's to 325 indictments in 2005 while the staffing went from two full time lawyers and two part-time, to one full-time and two part-time lawyers. The driving force for such increase was the epidemic of drug addiction which has placed such a strain on prosecution resources country wide. The only way to properly administer such a case load with limited staff was by increased automation. To that end, I wrote Docket Control, the software that currently runs the office. Even with limited staff, we have been able to keep our grand jury backlog to less than 60 days, and to resolve most matters close to the ABA standards. I am very proud of our accomplishments, both my own, and those of my staff, in making this possible.
To make maximum use of Docket Control, I bought, at my own expense, a separate computer, installed Fedora Core Linux on it, and built a local domain centered on the Linux server, which provided quick and reliable access to shared resources throughout the office. This structure was used until 2006, when the state offered a Windows 2003 server which offered greater security by requiring a reboot following a crash every hour or so, thus insuring that the operators of the various machines who must then log back in were who they purported to be. The improved system is also quite a bit slower, encouraging people to think before they do any actual work. Finally, I hacked a LinkSys WRT54GL router to reach the courthouse, and instituted WPA encrypted direct access to Docket Control from the courtrooms. Thus far, the state hasn't offered any improvements over this system.
COMMUNITY
INVOLVEMENT: I have served as Deacon or Elder in my church for many years, and served one term as Chairman of the Board. Since 2002 I have offered pulpit supply to churches in Kentucky and West Virginia as a licensed lay minister, under the guidance of the Committee on the Ministry of the Christian Church in Kentucky.
I serve on the board of Kentucky Appalachian Ministries, and am a contributor, with my band mates, to the CD KAM is currently distributing.
I am a volunteer at Appalshop, in Whitesburg, where I am known as "The Old Dutchman", a programmer on WMMT's "From the Roots" program. I also have appeared at music festivals here, and as far away as Washington State, Northern Ireland and England.
PROFESSIONAL
AFFILIATIONS: KENTUCKY AND BOYD COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATIONS
BOYD COUNTY CHILD ADVOCACY TEAM
BOYD COUNTY CHILD FATALITY TEAM
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH (DISCIPLES OF CHRIST), ASHLAND
FOOT IN THE AIR STRING BAND
WMMT
PERSONAL: I am married to the former
Kathy Mitchell, and we have one daughter, Kat, who is 19 and a student at
Marshall University. I had a son, John, by a previous marriage. John passed
away from a diabetes-related heart attack on Christmas Eve, 1999. He was 33.