About Judge Benjamin Beaton, slushies and more
Consent Decree Motion, Post 1 - First in a series - A refreshing treat in Courtroom 2
On December 27, 2024, the DOJ Consent Decree for Louisville Metro and the LMPD got waved over when the FOP filed a motion to intervene. The Fraternal Order of Police motion was excellent, written by a team of attorneys in Pewee Valley who deserve a round of applause. Hear! Hear! VPlegalGroup.com/.
When Mayor Greenberg announced the agreement with the DOJ in mid-December, the CD seemed to be home free. If you are excited about this turn of events, post your opinions on X and other social media. Let Louisville know you oppose the CD! Stand up for the LMPD.
Why don’t peace officers want to work under a Consent Decree?
Short answer: They won’t feel comfortable using their own best judgment, but will fear devastating reprisals if they react in a way that is not precisely ‘by the book.’
Do doctors like to follow regimens for care established by insurers or bureaucrats?
That is an apt analogy because for each group, lives are at stake. Many searched their souls before pursuing their careers, knowing they would be called to go the extra mile as a matter of course.
Personal judgment based on experience, training and perceived circumstances when time is of the utmost essence, is superior in the vast majority of cases.
Meet Judge Beaton
On January 13 the initial hearing for the proposed Consent Decree was held in Judge Benjamin Beaton’s courtroom.
Judge Beaton is a Trump-appointed District Judge of Kentucky’s Western District Court. A native of Paducah, Ky., he earned a BA from Centre College summa cum laude and his JD from Columbia, where he was an articles editor on the Columbia Law Review.
His background includes serving as a legal fellow with the International Justice Mission in Kampala, Uganda, and as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
During the hearing, Judge Beaton shared that he was the one who sentenced the LMPD officers to jail time for throwing slushies on unsuspecting pedestrians, and a court-appointed monitor was not needed— he did it himself. His decision was opposed by the DOJ attorneys who did not want those police to have jail time— which he found ironic.
Judge Beaton made clear that he expected to know the number of incidents of excessive force, for example, that comprised the statistical sample for the ‘patterns and practices’ accusation in the DOJ findings. This was a jaw-dropping moment for the nine (10?) DOJ attorneys. The formidable legal team seemed to anticipate more respect for all they had already done for Louisville and BLM. They have no intention of providing such statistics.
Already, Judge Beaton has drawn the Louisville Metro lead attorney, Megan Metcalf, to say that her team does not agree with the DOJ that the LMPD is racist.
More confessions like that could lead the Judge to conclude that the DOJ is mistaken about Louisville needing a Consent Decree. However, Metcalf noted that Mayor Greenberg and the city executives are in favor of it.
A meeting was held last weekend at the Roots 101 Museum for the public to understand why the CD is ‘crucial for the community.’ WLKY News introduced the museum as ‘a place where where victims of police brutality are honored daily.’
Most of the media coverage about the hearing has been fair and truthful. Some can be read or viewed (free) here:
In other January 2025 CD news, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill have announced their partnership in an effort to end the New Orleans Police Department's consent decree.
Read an article on the Minneapolis CD that is about to be filed in federal court for the approval of a judge before it goes into effect. This decree is in addition to the first court enforceable agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the City of Minneapolis reached on March 31, 2023, which a court approved on July 13, 2023.
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