A Kentucky judge has been publicly reprimanded for forcing two children to go on vacation with their dad under the threat of being sent to foster care and without hearing from both sides.
According to the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission, 46th Judicial District Judge Shan Embry, who presides in Meade, Breckinridge, and Grayson counties, committed misconduct by violating several judicial canons, including being fair.
On June 20, Embry spoke alone to the attorney of the father of two young girls, who were refusing to go on vacation with their dad. Later that day, in a hearing with both sides present, Embry “ordered the mother to convince her daughters to go on vacation with their father or be held in contempt,” according to Wednesday’s ruling.
According to the ruling, after a break, the attorney for the mother, asked if the children could speak with the judge. The judge “refused and threatened to place them in foster care if they did not go on vacation with their father,” according to the order. Later, Embry called the girls to the bench and made them choose whether they would go on vacation or be sent to foster care. After the girls agreed to go with their father, Embry told them if she heard that they misbehaved, “they would visit her again and they would like it even less.”
In handing out the discipline, the commission said Embry had “fully cooperated in the matter.”
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