Known as the Kentucky Wonder around the courthouse for the speed with which he clears his docket and his country-lawyer sense of fairness, Daryl Coffey (who grew up in the tobacco state's Cumberland County) has been on the bench here since 1991. Defense attorneys, prosecutors, probation officers, interpreters, and defendants alike say he metes out justice based on the Constitution and common sense (cruelty to an animal can get the offender a term in the city's livestock barns shoveling up poop), treats the accused with dignity and walks the extra mile to right an injustice. In one celebrated case, he even proved that a life-long Republican can have a delicious sense of humor -- but then he is from Kentucky.Seems Radio 103.5's Russ Martin (the Talk ... that Rocks) wound up in Coffey's court last year where he pled guilty to "obstruction of highway" after Fort Worth cops caught him drunk outside his auto. Put on probation, Martin completed its conditions and was released by Coffey from further obligations, his debt to society paid in full. When the d.j. popped off later on the air about taking "wine enemas," a probation officer from Coffey's court heard it and went ballistic; he revoked Martin's release from probation and ordered him to pay back costs -- all without Coffey's knowledge. "Shouldn't have happened," Coffey said. "It was just plain wrong." That's why Coffey -- at Martin's request for a very public repentance -- can now be seen on a station promo poster with Martin and his radio crew all dressed up in outrageously gaudy pimp clothes. (Coffey's seen in a wide-brimmed, purple hat with a feather boa around his neck.) He also wrote a check out of his own pocket to Martin's favorite charity to cover the wrongly imposed probation fees the d.j. had paid. "One injustice is one too many," Coffey explains. One judge willing to wear a purple pimp hat on behalf of justice, however, isn't. We need more.

Readers' Choice: Mike Moncrief

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