Meryl Carver-Allmond, a Lawrence attorney and general counsel for the Kansas Supreme Court chief justice, is one of three nominees to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Kansas Court of Appeals bench.
Gov. Laura Kelly announced three nominees Friday morning to fill the vacancy that will be created with the March 3 retirement of Judge Henry Green Jr.
Carver-Allmond, also an adjunct professor at Washburn University School of Law, previously served as the training director for the Kansas public defender system. She also worked as an appellate attorney for more than a decade, most recently leading the Kansas Capital Appellate Defender Office, where she represented clients in capital and high-level felony cases in the Kansas and U.S. Supreme Courts, according to the governor’s news release.
Carver-Allmond is president of the Douglas County Bar Association and has been involved with the National Association for Public Defense, the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Kansas Women Attorneys Association, according to the release. She got her bachelor’s degree from Pittsburg State University and her juris doctorate from KU Law.
The other nominees are Randall L. Hodgkinson, of Topeka, and Judge Lori Bolton-Fleming, of Pittsburg.
Hodgkinson is an appellate defender for the Kansas Appellate Defender Office, where he represents individuals convicted of felonies before Kansas appellate courts, according to the release. He’s also been a visiting assistant professor of law at Washburn since 2006. He got his bachelor’s degree from Wichita State and his law degree from Arizona State.
Bolton-Fleming is chief judge for the 11th Judicial District of Kansas, which includes Cherokee, Labette, and Crawford counties. She was first appointed to the bench in 2012 by Gov. Sam Brownback. She has previously worked as a private practice attorney for Wilbert & Towner P.A. and Spigarelli Law Firm, and she served as the legal clinic director for Pittsburg State from 2009 to 2012, according to the release. She got her bachelor’s degree from Pittsburg State and her law degree from Washburn.
Kelly will appoint one of the three nominees, who will then face confirmation by the Kansas Senate.
Green, appointed to the court in 1993, will retire after serving 32 years on the bench, making him the longest-serving judge on the court to date, according to the Kansas Judicial Branch.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time on the court, and it has been a very gratifying and a humbling experience for me,” Green said in the announcement of his retirement.
“It was gratifying because as a judge, you must reflect often on whether you have allowed any prejudices, biases, or value judgments to creep into your thinking which may cloud your decision-making process.”
Judicial branch staff estimate that he was involved in writing more than 10,000 decisions, according to the announcement.
Working through cases early in his time on the Court of Appeals bench affirmed that he and his fellow judges shared a core belief in equality before the law.
“One’s status in society, rich or poor, should not determine one’s rights,” he said in the announcement. “The law should apply to everyone equally.”
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