Bruce Petrie has faced his fair share of angry people, but no one has quite rivaled the man who was apprehended the morning he intended to walk into Petrie’s courtroom with a gun.
As a family court judge, Petrie spends a lot of time around distraught parents caught up in custody battles, grown-ups who tend to solve their differences with fistfights, and in this instance a disgruntled husband who didn’t like how Petrie settled his divorce. The Washington Post reporter who later covered the divorce case wrote, “Petrie is the one to make a decision that inevitably leaves someone upset.”
Despite the lingering urge to look over his shoulder and the tears streaming down the face of his then 9-year-old daughter because someone had tried to kill her daddy, Petrie, a ruling elder at Grace Church in Danville, Kentucky, knows he’s in good hands.
“I heard a preacher say one time, ‘I’m immortal as long as God wants me here, and I won’t be here one second longer,’” Petrie explains, in a slight Kentucky drawl.
Duck-Hunting Law
The murder attempt was 15 years ago. Today, Petrie is still at it, helping find the safest homes for children, settling divorce cases, and finalizing adoptions. It’s a calling he never asked for, but now can’t imagine himself without.
When he was first approached about family court, after three years in district court, Petrie admits he was initially reluctant. Having witnessed his parents’ own messy divorce, he wasn’t sure he wanted a full-time job wading through the inevitable sadness and conflict of family court. But when he asked some fellow elders for their opinion, they lobbed him two questions that convinced him he was the person for the job: “If you’re being asked to do this, is there a chance it’s a calling for you? And can you think of anybody who should do it instead of you?”
And in many ways, the role has been much what Petrie expected. Compared to district court, he says, “There is more sadness and it’s more serious, but it feels worthy of your time and efforts.”
Petrie says he does his best to treat those who come into his courtroom with patience and respect, “taking into account the humanity of each person.”
There have been the worst-case cases, like the time when the prosecution dismissed an abuse case over which Petrie was presiding and the child was later murdered. And there have been the joyous moments, where he gets to legalize a child’s adoption. But at day’s end, Petrie says that ruling in family court is too often like split-second duck hunting. “There’s a duck. BAM.” You think you made the right choice, but there are always questions.
And that’s where trusting in the hand of God means he can fall asleep at night.
“There’s a lot of decisions where one could go either way as a judge; you make the best decision you can and ultimately the Sovereign of the universe is not me.”
Relearning the Job
Since COVID-19, Petrie has been holding court via Skype. “All of us are relearning a job we’ve done forever. I’ve been doing things in the past month that I’ve never done before,” says Petrie, who’s been practicing law since 1991.
The first week, the learning curve was steep. What would have taken two hours took nine. But now things are moving more swiftly. “I think [the] court system will be changed,” he says. “I pray for the better.”
About Judge Petrie
Bruce Petrie is a family court judge for the Boyle and Mercer Counties (Kentucky) Family Court of the 50th Judicial Circuit.
He was re-elected without opposition in 2014 for an eight-year term expiring on January 1, 2023.
Source: Ballotpedia
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