Bench & Bar September/October 2026

Justice Graves poses with his likeness on canvas at his portrait dedication in February. Joining him were wife Mary Ann (right), portrait artist Fred Biggs (left of portrait), Justice C. Shea Nickell (left middle) and the artist’s wife, Pat. “He was always a man that stood out in a crowd,” artist Biggs said of the justice. “He was always a man that had a unique brightness to him. I wanted to put that on canvas. I wanted this to be a canvas that when you looked across, ‘That one’s a little unique; it’s a little brighter,’ because that’s the man.”

‘THE LAW IS VERY INTERESTING’

TAKING THE BENCH Family influenced his decision to leave private practice after 20 years. He recalled days when work left little quality time with his young sons. In 1984, then-Gov. Martha Layne Collins appointed him as a McCracken County District Court judge. He was subsequently elected. “If there ever was a man who was a great family man, a man who was always there, always willing, always wanting to help his children through life’s ups and downs, it was Bill Graves,” said retired Chief Justice Joseph E. Lambert, who served with him on the Supreme Court. In 1988, then-Gov. Wallace Wilkinson appointed him as a McCracken County circuit judge, and he was elected to keep the seat. He served on Circuit Court for six years before his election to the Supreme Court. Justice Graves made local headlines from the circuit bench. He once sent a bailiff to silence a lawn mower disrupting court and

eligible for the draft, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, later joined the Judge Advocate Gen eral’s Corps and became a colonel. During 35 years of active and reserve service, he completed Command and General Staff College, Air War College and National Defense University. His honors included the Army Commendation Medal, Army Meritorious Service Medal and Defense Meritorious Medal. After active military service, Justice Graves worked for a year as a chemist, which he said he found boring. He then joined a friend at the University of Kentucky College of Law after meeting with the dean. “At that time all you had to do to get into the University of Kentucky was have an undergraduate degree, and tuition at UK was I think $85 a year and the University of Louisville Medical School, it was $900 a year,” he said. “Law school had no labs.” He said he made the right choice: “The law is very interesting, and each case is like doing a term paper.”

The law shaped Justice Graves’ life before he joined the profession. He said his mother won child support from his biological father in a Kentucky Court of Appeals case involv ing support beyond age 18 for a child in college. The case helped make his education at the University of Notre Dame possible. Justice Graves did not initially plan to become a lawyer. After graduating from Notre Dame in 1957, he spent a year at the University of Louisville School of Medicine with plans to become a psychiatrist. “In college, I loved theology and philosophy, and I wanted to know why I thought the way I did and why I felt the way I did,” he said, adding that psychiatry was considered “on the fringe” at the time. After realizing he would need to attend constant labs for medical school and having spent more than enough time with a mal odorous cadaver, he decided to take a gap year to consider his next steps. Instead,

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