Lawyer Seeks To Have Judge Disqualified

{Louisville, Kentucky}...Louisville attorney Monroe Freedman, who teaches ethics at Hofstra University, is asking that Jefferson District Judge Annette Karem be disqualified from a case after offering an unusual plea bargain. Last year,  lawyer Amelia Adams appeared before Karem seeking the court's permission for a 17 year old girl to have an abortion without her parents' consent. Karem told Adams she needed the girl's name because the teen had testified that she and a sister were possibly being neglected. Kentucky law requires that Child Protective Services be notified in cases of neglect and abuse. Adams refused, and Karem sentenced her to jail for not obeying a court order. Adams appealed. Judge Karem said she would reduce a six-month contempt sentence to one weekend for Adams if she would pay legal fees that the judge could incur while fighting the lawyer's appeals. Adams says Karem should no longer be allowed to oversee the case and has asked Kentucky's chief justice to disqualify her, saying her financial request gives the appearance, if not the actuality, of impropriety. Freedman says, "the judge should be removed from the case, if not from the bench."