After appearing on DOGE cuts list, Eastern KY courthouse to move federal proceedings
Federal court proceedings in Pikeville will end this year, according to a general order signed by U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky Chief Judge David Bunning.
The order, signed by Bunning and certified by a Sixth Circuit judge late last week, will transfer all pending Pikeville cases to the Ashland and London divisions starting Wednesday, Dec. 31, marking an end to a federal judiciary presence in one of Kentucky’s easternmost cities after 83 years.
Shifting Pikeville’s cases elsewhere will lengthen the commute time for some Eastern Kentuckians who are needed in federal court. Ashland and London are both about a two-hour drive from Pikeville.
Future cases from Johnson, Magoffin and Martin counties will be transferred to the court’s Ashland Division, while Pike, Letcher, Floyd and Knott cases will be moved to London. Operations in Covington, Frankfort and Lexington remain unchanged by the order.
It remains unclear whether the suspension of business in the division is permanent, and whether any staff in Pikeville will be reassigned. Business at the courthouse on Main Street in downtown Pikeville will be “pretermitted,” the order reads, or abandoned or suspended indefinitely.
A court representative reached by phone Thursday declined to answer Herald-Leader questions.
Pikeville Mayor Jimmy Carter said he believes the order will be permanent because the city’s courthouse has been on the chopping block before. City officials have lobbied Kentucky’s congressional delegation to preserve it in the past, he said.
The federal courthouses in Ashland, London and Pikeville were listed as “non-core” U.S. government assets ripe for disposal in a since-deleted General Services Administration list of properties spurred on by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency spending cuts.
Since learning of the court’s general order Oct. 31, however, calls to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office have gone unanswered, Carter said.
“It’s going to put a hardship and a burden on people that have business in front of the court because of the extra long drives,” he said. “I’m not going to say it’s a status symbol, but it’s impressive that you have a federal courthouse in your city. It makes a big difference in how you’re perceived.”
There have been fewer cases heard in Pikeville recently, said Gene Vance, a member of the Stoll Keenon Ogden law firm in Lexington. A permanent judge hasn’t made the city their duty station since the early 1990s. Magistrate Judge Edward Atkins moved his duty station from Pikeville to Frankfort in the last few years, Vance added.
The order only pertains to cases in the Pikeville division and doesn’t explicitly close the courthouse, Vance said.
Jury divisions are not statutory in Kentucky, leaving it solely up to eastern and western district judges to determine how to allocate cases within the counties under their jurisdiction. Local federal judiciary rules in Kentucky are subject to a joint commission.
Although court security personnel were present Thursday, there did not appear to be a complete listing of clerk or judicial staff who make the Pikeville courthouse their permanent workspace.
Use of the word “pretermitted” to reallocate cases is unusual, according to Vance.
“I’ve never seen that word used before in this context,” he said.
The order will likely be most significant for criminal cases, as in-person civil cases are becoming more infrequent, Vance said. There were two civil cases and no criminal cases pending before the Pikeville divisional court, according to public electronic court records queried Thursday.
“The overall impact is probably small,” Vance said.
This story was originally published November 6, 2025 at 1:25 PM.
