Division 1
Joseph H. Eckert (1976)
Judge Joseph H. Eckert received his undergraduate degree from the University of Louisville and his juris doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law. He served as assistant attorney general of Kentucky from 1965 to 1970 and as assistant law director for the city of Louisville from 1970 to 1976. He taught at Bellarmine College and was a guest lecturer at the University of Louisville's law and medicine colleges. Appointed in 1976, he was an original member of the Court of Appeals created by the passage of the Judicial Article that unified the state court system.
John P. Hayes (1976-1993)
Former Chief Judge (1979-1986)
Judge John P. Hayes was born in Willisburg. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Louisville, a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1955 and a master's degree in law from the University of Virginia. He was an FBI agent from 1955 to 1960 before entering private practice in Louisville. He worked part-time as an assistant commonwealth's attorney and, in the late 1960s, was the Second Ward alderman for Louisville. He served as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge from 1969 to 1976. In 1976, he was elected to the newly formed Kentucky Court of Appeals. He was the court's chief judge from 1979 to 1986. He passed away in 2002.
Martin E. Johnstone (1993-1997)
Justice Johnstone made history as the first judge to be elected to all four levels of the state court system. He was born in 1949 in Louisville and received his bachelor's degree with honors from Western Kentucky University and his juris doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1975. He entered private practice in Louisville. In 1976, he was elected judge for the Third Magisterial District. In 1978, he was elected as a District Court judge for Jefferson County, where he served as chief district judge on a 23-judge court. He was elected as a Circuit Court judge for Jefferson County in 1983 and was elected chief circuit judge of the 16-member court in 1987. In 1993, he was appointed to the Court of Appeals, where he was appointed chief judge pro tem in 1996. Later that year, he was elected to the Supreme Court of Kentucky, where he served until his retirement in 2006. Justice Johnstone passed away in 2026.
Lisabeth Hughes (1997-1998)
Justice Lisabeth T. Hughes served two separate terms on the Kentucky Court of Appeals for a total of three years before joining the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Born in Princeton, she received her bachelor's degree with highest honors in 1977 from the University of Louisville and a juris doctor magna cum laude in 1980 from the University of Louisville School of Law. Justice Hughes served nearly eight years as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge before being appointed to the Court of Appeals. She was the Court of Appeals for the 1st Division of the 4th Appellate District from 1997 to 1998 and Division 2 from 2006 to 2007. In 2007, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Kentucky, where she served more than 15 years. Chief Justice of Kentucky John D. Minton Jr. appointed her as deputy chief justice, a role she held from 2017 until her retirement in 2023.
William E. McAnulty Jr. (1998-2006)
Justice William E. McAnulty Jr. was the first Black man to serve on the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the first to serve on the Kentucky Supreme Court. Born in Indianapolis in 1947, he received his undergraduate degree from Indiana University in 1970, followed by a master's degree in education in 1971 from the University of Louisville and a juris doctor in 1974 from the University of Louisville School of Law. Justice McAnulty was appointed as a Jefferson County Juvenile Court judge in 1975. He was elected to Jefferson District Court in 1977, being a member of the first group elected after the passage of the Judicial Article that unified the state court system. He served as a district judge from 1978 to 1983. He was elected to Jefferson Circuit Court in 1983 and served until 1990. He briefly returned to private practice as a partner with Greenebaum Doll & McDonald in 1990 and returned to the Circuit Court bench by appointment in 1993. He was chief judge of Jefferson Circuit Court in 1998. He was elected to the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1998. In 2006, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Kentucky to fill the vacancy created by Justice Martin E. Johnstone's retirement. Justice McAnulty passed away in 2007. A bust of the justice is permanently displayed in the vestibule of the Supreme Court Courtroom at the Capitol.
Thomas B. Wine (2006-2012)
Judge Thomas B. Wine was born in 1955 in Louisville. He received his undergraduate degree in 1977 from the University of Louisville and a juris doctor in 1980 from the University of Louisville School of Law. He worked in the commonwealth's attorney office in Jefferson County from 1979 to 1984 and from 1988 to 1990 and served in the Office of the Attorney General from 1984 to 1988. He was in private practice from 1990 until his election as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge in 1991, serving as chief circuit judge in 2000 and 2001. He was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2006 to fill the vacancy created by Justice William E. McAnulty Jr.'s appointment to the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Judge Wine passed away in 2023.
Irvin G. Maze (2012-2023)
Judge Irv Maze received his bachelor's degree in political science from Indiana University. Upon receiving his juris doctor from the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, he established a private law practice specializing in family, employment and municipal law. He maintained his private practice for 32 years until his appointment as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge in 2008. After five years as a circuit judge, he was appointed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 2012 to fill the vacancy created by Judge Thomas B. Wine's retirement. Before taking the bench, he served as an assistant Jefferson County attorney from 1979 to 1985. He served as a commissioner on Jefferson County Fiscal Court before serving as Jefferson County attorney from 1999 to 2008, where he helped establish a nationally recognized Drug Court program. As counsel to local government, he supervised the merger of Louisville and Jefferson County governments.
Audra J. Eckerle (2023-Present)
Judge Audra Jean Eckerle is a Kentucky native. She received her bachelor's degree in political science summa cum laude from the University of California, Davis, in 1988 and her juris doctor from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991. In her 12 years of practice before joining the bench, she had a varied civil and criminal practice, including serving as general counsel for a publicly traded, national assisted-living company; was an attorney at both large- and medium-sized civil firms; and was an assistant county attorney. She clerked for a U.S. District Court judge in Sacramento, Calif. Judge Eckerle served four years as a Jefferson District Court judge, including an appointment as chief regional district judge for Jefferson County. She was in her 15th year as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge when she was elected to the Court of Appeals. She served as chief regional circuit judge/chief circuit judge for two years as a circuit judge. Learn more about Judge Eckerle at https://kcoj.info/Eckerle.
Division 2
Boyce F. Martin, Jr. (1976–1979)
Former Chief Judge (1976-1979)
Judge Boyce F. Martin was born in 1935 in Boston and received an undergraduate
degree in English and history from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1957. After
graduation, he was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s Armor Branch and
later a captain in the Army Reserve. He received his juris doctor from the
University of Virginia Law School in 1963. He served as a clerk for U.S. Court
of Appeals Judge Shackelford Miller Jr. from 1963 to 1964 before becoming the
U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky in 1965. After several years
working in private practice and teaching at the University of Louisville School
of Law, Judge Martin was appointed and then elected as a Jefferson Circuit
Court judge in 1974. In 1976, he was appointed as one of the original members
of the new Court of Appeals after passage of the Judicial Article that unified
the state court system. He was the court’s first chief judge. In 1979, President
Jimmy Carter nominated Judge Martin to a new seat on the Sixth Circuit of the
U.S. Court of Appeals, where he was chief judge from 1996 to 2003. He retired
from the court in 2013. Judge Martin passed away in 2016.
Roberts Breetz (1979-1980)
Judge Robert G. Breetz was born in 1935. He received his bachelor's degree from Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary in Illinois in 1956 and a juris doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1962. From 1961 to 1962, he served as a law clerk for Roy M. Shelbourne, U.S. District Court judge for the Western District of Kentucky. He worked in private practice in Louisville with Stites & Harbison (and its predecessor firms) from 1962 to 1979. He served one year on the Court of Appeals before returning to private practice with the firm, where he was a partner for decades. In 1993, he joined Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company of Kentucky, where he became chief operating officer, retiring in 2010. He passed away in 2018.
Michael O. McDonald (1980-1995)
Judge Michael O. McDonald was born in 1934 in Mississippi. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Louisville in 1957 and juris doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1963. He worked in private practice in Louisville from 1963 to 1972, including time as general counsel for the Jefferson County Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustments. In 1971, he was elected as a Circuit Court judge for the 30th Judicial Circuit, where he served as chief judge. He was on the Circuit Court bench until being elected in 1980 to the Court of Appeals. Following his retirement, Judge McDonald served as an expert witness, was federally appointed as an arbitrator, served as a mediator, was a commissioner for the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission and was appointed as a special justice on the Supreme Court of Kentucky. He passed away in 2020.
Edmund Karem (1995-1995)
Judge Edmund P. Karem was born in 1941 in Louisville. He received his bachelor's degree from Bellarmine College in 1963 and a juris doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1968. He began his career as a teacher at Bishop David High School in Louisville. He went on to serve as a special prosecutor for the Department of Public Safety Division of Motor Vehicle Inspections in Jefferson County from 1969 to 1970. He was in private practice in Louisville until he was elected as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge, serving from 1984 to 1992. He was chief judge from 1986 to 1987. He served on the Court of Appeals in 1995.
William L. Knopf (1995-2006)
Judge William L. Knopf was born in 1954 in Louisville. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Loyola University of New Orleans in 1976 and a juris doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1978. He served as an assistant commonwealth's attorney from 1979 to 1981. From 1981 to 1984, he was in private law practice with his father, handling criminal and civil litigation. In January 1984, then-Gov. Martha Layne Collins appointed him as a District Court judge for the 30th Judicial District to fill a vacancy. He was elected to the seat in November and reelected in 1985 and 1989. In 1989, then-Gov. Wallace G. Wilkinson appointed him as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge to fill a vacancy. Judge Knopf was elected to the seat in 1990 and again in 1991. Judge Knopf was elected in a special election to begin serving on the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1995 to complete an unexpired term. He was reelected in 1999. He retired in June 2006.
Lisabeth Hughes (2006-2007)
Justice Lisabeth T. Hughes served two separate terms on the Kentucky Court of Appeals for a total of three years before joining the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Born in Princeton, she received her bachelor's degree with highest honors in 1977 from the University of Louisville and a juris doctor magna cum laude in 1980 from the University of Louisville School of Law. Justice Hughes served nearly eight years as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge before being appointed to the Court of Appeals. She was the Court of Appeals for the 1st Division of the 4th Appellate District from 1997 to 1998 and Division 2 from 2006 to 2007. In 2007, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Kentucky, where she served more than 15 years. Chief Justice of Kentucky John D. Minton Jr. appointed her as deputy chief justice, a role she held from 2017 until her retirement in 2023.
Denise Clayton (2007-2023)
Former Chief Judge (2019-2022)
Judge Denise G. Clayton was the first Black woman to serve on the Kentucky Court of Appeals when she joined the court in 2007 and later served as its chief judge. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Defiance College in Ohio and received her juris doctor from the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. She began her legal career as an attorney with the Internal Revenue Service and later served as director of student legal services at the University of Louisville while maintaining a private practice. She was associate director of the Legal Aid Society of Louisville before becoming a Jefferson District Court judge in 1996. She also served Jefferson County as a Family Court judge and Drug Court judge before serving nearly seven years as a Jefferson Circuit Court judge, where she was chief circuit judge. She was the first Black woman in Kentucky to be a Circuit Court judge and was chief regional circuit judge for the Metro Region for several months before joining the Kentucky Court of Appeals. She was appointed and then elected to the court. She served as chief judge pro tem from 2016 until her appointment in 2018 as chief judge, a role she held until her retirement in 2023.
Annette C. Karem (2023-Present)
Judge Annette C. Karem received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Louisville, a Master of Business Administration from Bellarmine University and a juris doctor from the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. She served seven years as an assistant Jefferson County attorney before taking the bench. She prosecuted domestic violence, crimes against children and sexual assault cases. Prior to becoming a prosecutor, she worked in private practice as an associate at Williams & Wagoner Law Offices and the Christina Norris Law Office. In 2006, she was elected as a Jefferson District Court judge and served 16 years. She was chief judge from 2020 to 2022. She was elected to the Court of Appeals in November 2022 and began serving in 2023. Learn more about Judge Karem at https://kcoj.info/Karem.