Background
The son of a mailman, he attended Shortridge High School, Indiana University, and received a Juris Doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law.
The son of a mailman, he attended Shortridge High School, Indiana University, and received a Juris Doctor from the University of Louisville School of Law.
Indiana University.
McAnulty became a juvenile court judge in Louisville in 1975, and was elected Jefferson County District Court judge in 1977. In 1980, he left the bench when Governor John Y. Brown Junior. named him state justice secretary, making him the first black to hold a cabinet-level post in Kentucky. However, he resigned a month later, saying that the position would force him to spend too much time away from his family.
Brown immediately reappointed him to his former seat on the District Court.
McAnulty was elected Circuit Court judge in 1983. As a Circuit Court judge he presided over one of the high-profile and highly emotional Trinity murders cases, sentencing Victor Dewayne Taylor to death, despite McAnulty"s own moral reservations about the death penalty.
In 1990 he left the bench for private practice, but was re-elected to the Circuit Court in 1993 as chief judge. The Kentucky Trial Attorneys Association named McAnulty as the Henry V. Pennington Outstanding Judge of the Year in 1997.
He was appointed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1998, representing the 4th Appellate District, and wrote about 750 opinions in that position.
In 2006, Governor Ernie Fletcher appointed McAnulty to the Kentucky Supreme Court. McAnulty was a longtime supporter of the Legal Aid Society of Louisville, he spoke at their office dedication ceremony in November 2007 and advocated in his position of Chair of the Metro United Way board for the establishment of their Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome legal advocate program In June 2007, McAnulty was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread to his brain.
He blamed his illness on a 40-year smoking habit that he had finally kicked in December 2006, saying, "I"m paying the piper.
I ain"t a victim, and I ain"t going to whine." He maintained a sense of humor during his illness. Before surgery on July 11 to remove a lesion from the base of his brain, he joked with the attending neurosurgeon, "My only question was will this make me a United Kingdom fan or affect my political outlook.
He assured me it won"t, so I"m excited about that."
However, after he fell and broke his collarbone, McAnulty stepped down from the bench in early August. He died in his home in Louisville"s Highlands neighborhood on August 23, 2007, aged 59.
He is buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
A bust of Judge McAnulty was unveiled in the rotunda of the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, on February 11, 2010.
Louisville Bar Association (Director, 1990). General Litigation, Sports Law.