JigSaw's Blog

KC picks new municipal judge

Katherine Emke, an assistant prosecutor for domestic violence cases in Kansas City Municipal Court, was selected today to serve as a judge in that court.

The City Council voted 8 to 4 to select Emke over local defense attorney Ardie Bland. A third candidate was Eddie Medina Lorenzo, a staff attorney for Legal Aid of Western Missouri.

Council members praised all three candidates as being eminently qualified but those who supported Emke emphasized her experience and knowledge of the court. She worked part-time in the prosecutors office from 1994 to 2005 and full-time from 2005 to the present.

In her interview with the council, Emke said she hoped to make probation more successful by making the court more sensitive to defendants who cannot afford monitoring costs or fees for programs such as drug counseling, anger management or even community service.

Those people often don’t show up for court dates out of fear, which leads to arrest warrants and further compounds their problems, Emke said. If funds are available more of those programs should be done through the court instead of through other agencies, she said.

She also said she was sensitive to the fact that minorities receive more citations that end up in municipal court.

“You know there’s racial profiling (by police) going on,” Emke said. “It’s the secret no one wants to talk about but it’s out there.

Supporting Emke were Mayor Mark Funkhouser and council members Jan Marcason, Cindy Circo, Cathy Jolly, Beth Gottstein, Deb Hermann, Bill Skaggs and Russ Johnson. Supporting Bland were council members John Sharp, Terry Riley, Melba Curls and Sharon Sanders Brooks. Ed Ford was absent due to an injury.

| Matt Campbell, mcampbell@kcstar.com