Can a person who wrote a law journal article which stated homosexual sodomy does injure society, for many reasons keep their personal politics from mixing with the law as a Kentucky Supreme Court judge?

A candidate for a vacancy on the state Supreme Court wrote in a 1993 law journal article that he thought Kentucky’s sodomy laws should have not been overturned.

John Roach, Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s general counsel, said in an interview yesterday that the critique published in the Kentucky Law Journal was not about the state’s sodomy laws or his personal views on homosexuality. Roach said the article was about whether state Supreme Court justices should let personal opinions trump the law.

Roach is one of three candidates for a vacancy on the state Supreme Court. Fletcher will choose Roach, 37, or Franklin Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden, 59, or Fayette Circuit Judge Mary Noble, 56, to fill a vacancy on the state’s highest court. Justice James Keller announced earlier this year that he will step down from the position on May 31.

This is Fletcher’s first opportunity to appoint someone to the court. As sitting judges, Noble and Crittenden can be evaluated through their judicial decisions; Roach’s legal opinions can be traced only through writings such as the law review article.

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