The moment, Amber Wolf, the Louisville judge recognized that an offender in a robbery case had been in custody during the birth of his son, Wolf arranged for him to meet and hold his 1-month-old baby.
James Roeder and his wife, Ashley, is co-offender in the same robbery case. Because of this, they had been ordered by Wolf not to have contact with each other even though Ashley gave birth to their baby while she was awaiting trial.
Ashley and James had back-to-back court dates and Wolf noticed Ashley holding up their son, in a hope that the new father would catch a glimpse of his new-born. Knowing that James may not get a chance to meet his baby anytime in the near future, Wolf decided to interfere.
Ashley said that the judge called her attorney up to the bench and said something to him and her attorney came to her and said if she would you have any objections to James seeing his son. Ashley responded and said ‘Absolutely not.’
In the Jefferson District Court video, Wolf calls James back into the courtroom. She makes it very clear that the couple could not converse their cases but she wanted to make an exemption to the no-contact order so that James could meet his baby.
In the video, Ashley hands their son to James, who holds him for a few seconds and kisses him. Both parents can be seen wiping away tears.
Wolf said thank you to Ashley in the video for letting her be a part of that touching moment. Once both parents left the courtroom, Wolf addressed the court and said if you do not have tears in your eyes then you’re just heartless.
As a judge, Wolf has a lot of emotion. She also made captions when a woman was shamed by jail officials and was brought into Wolf’s courtroom without any pants on. Wolf made an apology to the woman, got her pants and instantly got on the phone with jail administrators.
Wolf said that allowing James to meet his son wasn’t really a judge thing. She, however, think it was just more of a human thing.
