Kentucky Judge Amber Wolf, who recently made headlines for demanding to know why a woman in custody had been denied pants and feminine hygiene products, made another very decent thing happen in her courtroom last week. Wolf realized a defendant in a burglary case had been in custody and unable to meet his month-old son. The judge decided to arrange for him to hold the baby in court.
WDRB reports that James Roeder and his wife Ashley are co-defendants in the same burglary case, accused of breaking into a warehouse in February and taking flat-screen TVs. Judge Wolf issued a no-contact order forbidding them to speak to one another ahead of the trial. Ashley gave birth to the couple’s son while awaiting trial. On Friday morning, both of them had court dates, and Judge Wolf noticed Ashley trying to hold up the baby where her husband could see him.
“I saw her try to hold the baby up when he came out for his case to be called with his attorney,” Judge Wolf told WDRB. “And I thought that he hadn’t seen that. And it occurred to me after we finished this case that he had not met his baby — who was 30 days old — and that he was not going to get an opportunity to meet his baby anytime in the near future.”
Wolf made a decision to make a rare exception to the no-contact order and asked Ashley Roeder if she wanted her husband to be able to meet the child.