>> Most judges in some way it's a political position.
Some states it's elected by the public, some states it's elected by the legislature
and the governor, and that's called Missouri system in which then public kind of does an up
or down vote as whether or not you're doing a good job, other states just a general election.
My personal story was, I was born and raised here, decided in college that I wanted to go
to law school not to become a judge.
The farthest thing from my mind up until about eight
and half years ago was not ever sitting on the bench.
I went to law school, I came out, became an assistant prosecutor.
And I did that for a while, I enjoyed prosecuting and then I went
into private practice where I did a lot of different kind of things.
The opportunity came for me to run the commonwealth attorney
or the lead prosecutor in this county and I did so.
And I enjoyed that job for about 13 years.
Both of my circuit judges announced really a close together that they were both leaving.
One has gone on to be the chief justice of the Supreme Court in Kentucky, the other retired.
And, I was approached by one of those circuit judges to say,
you need to think about role of a judge.
And I'd never thought of it.
And I made a determination after talking with my family that it was something
that I reluctantly was curious about and could I do a good job so I decided that I would run.
Unfortunately, no one ran against me.
So, I got an opportunity of serving for about two years before the next election cycle.
And I found that it was a different kind of law.
It--