Below are questions The Jessamine Journal asked each candidate and these are their responses.

 Discuss your interest in serving as a Justice for the Kentucky Supreme Court — 5th District. 

ACREE: The best position in the judiciary for a person with a servant’s heart and a vision for improving justice is the Supreme Court. Outdated ways of addressing our communities’ legal needs must make way for innovation, such as the Veterans Treatment Courts I helped establish and child support diversion court I hope to spread across the state to free up prison cells for violent criminals.  I would urge such innovations.  Additionally, my ten years on the Court of Appeals testify to my abilities as a judge and scholar and I want to put those abilities to work on our highest court.

VANMETER: My name is Larry VanMeter and I currently serve as one of Jessamine County’s judges on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. I am running for the Kentucky Supreme Court because my combined thirty-three years of experience as a lawyer and judge give me a background which is unique to the current Supreme Court bench. As a practicing lawyer for eleven years, I gained practical experience in many areas of law, including equine, business planning, taxation, real estate, trust and estate planning, estate and probate administration, and routinely represented my clients in courts all over Kentucky. As a judge, I have over twenty-two years of experience as a trialjudge (district, circuit and family courts) and as an appeals judge. I have presided over thousands of cases, hearings and jury trials: civil, criminal, family and juvenile. If elected, I would be only the third justice ever to have served at all four levels of Kentucky’s unified judicial system. I also have experience in Frankfort working with the General Assembly to pass legislation. The job of a Supreme Court justice involves building consensus with others, whether within the court on decisions, on committees, or with the legislature or executive branch on legislation that impacts the court system. I have demonstrated the ability to do that.