Starting this month, 3rd District Judge Kimberly Hornak will add one more task to her already busy schedule: serving as presiding judge in the district's juvenile court system.
That comes on top of handling the regular work that juvenile court judges do, which includes dealing with abuse and neglect cases and juvenile delinquency. Hornak also has chosen to preside over a child-welfare drug court that supervises parents with substance-abuse problems and handle a special court of her own creation, a delinquency drug court that closely monitors youngsters with alcohol or other drug problems.
Her colleagues have no doubt Hornak is up to it.
Her selection also has created a first — the presiding judges of all four courts in the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City are women.
The others are:
Christine Durham, chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court.
Sandra Peuler, presiding judge for 3rd District Court.
Judith Billings, presiding judge for the Utah Court of Appeals.
Anyone who thinks these choices are merely token acts of political correctness is mistaken, according to a man who serves on the bench at the Matheson Courthouse.
"All four of those judges are excellent jurists," said 3rd District Juvenile Judge Robert Yeates. "They're very well-respected and highly regarded judges."
As a judge in juvenile court, he has had the opportunity to observe Hornak and has high praise for her and her work.
"She's an excellent judge," Yeates said. "She's kind and compassionate, very involved. She's very fair and even-handed. She's a dedicated professional."
Another jurist, Judge Gregory Orme of the Utah Court of Appeals, said he probably wouldn't have noticed that the four presiding judges were female until it was brought to his attention.
"Each of these women are highly respected judges that were selected by their respective colleagues, I'm sure with no thought really about their gender," Orme said.
He added that "it's a nice comment about the increasingly diverse nature of the Utah judicial bench" that something like this has occurred by happenstance.
For her part, Hornak says she's flattered to have been chosen by her peers to be the presiding judge, a job that involves making sure that a particular court system runs smoothly.
She also hopes that in her new capacity she can meet with other agencies, including police, the Division of Child and Family Services, substance abuse treatment centers and schools to figure out how they can work together better to help troubled families. "It's one of the most exciting things about this job," she said.
Being a juvenile court judge can be both wonderful and heartbreaking.
"This is a great job; it's very rewarding and challenging. I feel privileged to have it," Hornak said. "There are times when it's very stressful and draining, especially when you have to terminate someone's parental rights or have a juvenile that can't be rehabilitated and you have to certify the juvenile into the adult system."
There also are delightful days: "What I love is reuniting families. I love doing adoptions."
Despite calendars packed mainly with difficult problems, there are enough success stories to warm the heart. Although all Utah judges are prohibited from discussing pending cases, Hornak can say generally there are certain instances where she admires the resilience and courage of the parents and children who overcome their problems even when their legal and personal circumstances are bleak.
"I think I am most impressed when a single parent comes into court with several children and may have issues of his or her own, such as limited resources or substance abuse, and may have a child that has issues like mental-health problems or substance-abuse problems," she said.
"The parent comes to court and acknowledges there's a problem and asks for help. They openly state, 'I want to keep my family together.' "
Another first for this month is the fact that now all Utah juvenile courts are somewhat more open to the public and media, within certain limits, which is a huge contrast to the closed-door sessions of the past.
Hornak, for one, welcomes the change.
"It's a tremendous opportunity for the public to become educated as to what we do in juvenile court and how we really try to help families and children," she said.
Among her heroes are all the other juvenile court judges in the state. "They are among the finest people I've ever met. They try to have tremendous compassion and sensitivity in this job. They want to help families and children."
She notes that unlike many other states, where judges often rotate among adult court and juvenile court, Utahns must apply specifically for juvenile court to get the job.
Other heroes are her parents, Lawrence and Beverly Hornak, and the judge is especially grateful to her mother, who died in January, for instilling a love of reading and learning
Hornak got her law degree from Gonzaga University College of Law, worked with Utah Legal Services in Ogden and with the Legal Aid Society, then served as an assistant attorney general and was a deputy Salt Lake County attorney.
She was appointed to the bench in 1994 and the next year, in addition to her other duties, began a delinquency drug court that provides more intense and frequent supervision of youths charged with possession of alcohol or other drugs.
She also oversees a family drug court, a concept introduced by Juvenile Judge Yeates in the late '90s, that provides substantially more intense supervision of parents who are substance abusers.
That, too, means more work for the judges who use these models, but Hornak is convinced the results are worth it.
Hornak, who has a son, 8, and a daughter, 5, said she understands how difficult it is to be a parent.
"I remember Juvenile Judge Mark Andrus in 2nd District saying, 'The best thing you can do as a parent is just be there with your children — whether it's reading with them, hugging them, telling them every day how important they are,' " Hornak said. "The most important thing you can do is let them know how much they are loved and how important they are."
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com