Kentucky Instructions to Juries (Set)

Don Cetrulo is a practicing attorney, an Adjunct Professor at University of Kentucky College of Law, and a Commissioner of the Circuit Court for the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit. He previously served as the Director of Administrative Office of the Courts for fourteen years between 1981 and 1995, and as Director of the Legislative Research Commission for four years between 1995 and 1999. From 1999 and 2006, he was a Kentucky Commissioner of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law. In 1988 he received the prestigious Innovations in State and Local Government award for excellence in State and local Government from the Ford Foundation and Harvard University?s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

From 1972 to 1980 Cetrulo served as a member of the United States Army Reserve.

It is widely believed that Judge John S. Palmore has had more impact on the law of the state of Kentucky than has any other judge in this century. During his more than 20 years as a member of the Kentucky Court of Appeals (the state's highest court which then became the Kentucky Supreme Court), Palmore contributed volumes of published opinions to the law of Kentucky. While chief justice, he spearheaded the transition from the antiquated court system to the modern system of courts now in place in Kentucky. Judge Palmore chaired the review commission that supervised the drafting of the current Kentucky Penal Code.

He graduated cum laude from the University of Louisville Law School in 1939, attended the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration then went into private practice in his home town of Henderson, Kentucky. He was in the Navy and saw active duty in the Pacific arena during WWII.

Judge Palmore served as chief justice in 1966, 1973 and from 1977 to 1982. He remained a member of the state's highest court until he retired in 1982. He retired from private law practice in 1992 and lives in Frankfort, Kentucky.

William S. Cooper served on the Supreme Court of Kentucky since 1996, He represented the 2nd Supreme Court District, which is comprised of 14 counties in the mid-west region of Kentucky. Justice Cooper practiced law in Elizabethtown prior to serving as a circuit judge from 1979 to 1996. He was chief regional judge of the Green River Region during his last four years on the circuit bench. He retired on June 30, 2006.

Justice Cooper is a native of Elizabethtown, KY., where he currently resides. He attended the University of Kentucky as an undergraduate and graduated first in the law school class of 1970. He is a past president of the University of Kentucky Law Alumni Association and a 2001 inductee into the UK Law Alumni Hall of Fame.

Justice Cooper served as chair of the Supreme Court Criminal Rules Committee and the Kentucky Evidence Rules Review Commission. He also served on numerous working committees including the Kentucky Council on Higher Education Subcommittee for Legal Education, the Committee on Justice and Corrections, and the Commission on Guardians ad Litem.

Justice Cooper was named a Charter Life Fellow of the Kentucky Bar Foundation in 1986 and received the 1992 Bar Center Award from the Kentucky Bar Association.