Lydia Smoterich-Barr
The Honorable Lydia Smoterich-Barr | |
|---|---|
 Official Portrait, 2022 | |
| Presiding Judge of the Blaine County Superior Court (12th District) | |
| Assumed office May 22, 2022 | |
| Preceded by | Betty-Bea Getty |
| San Andreas Legal Aid Bureau (Associate Public Defender) | |
| In office July 2, 2014 – March 20, 2022 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | April 30, 1988 Liberty City, Liberty |
| Spouse | Tate Goodwin (m. 2016; div. 2022) |
| Residence | 6001 North Rockford Drive |
| Alma mater | Vespucci University (BA) University of San Andreas, Los Santos (JD) |
Lydia Smoterich-Barr (Born April 30, 1988) is an American attorney, arbitrator, and judge who is currently serving as the sole presiding judge of the Blaine County Superior Court since May of 2022. She is the ex-wife of Tate Goodwin, whom she met while working at the San Andreas Legal Aid Bureau in Los Santos.
Early life
Lydia Barr was born on April 30, 1988, and grew up in the Rotterdam Hill neighborhood of Liberty City. She was the only child of Jacob Leonard Barr (May 21, 1955 – October 19, 2005), known as Jack or Jacques, and his wife Sadie Smoterich. Jack Barr, whose parents and paternal grandparents were of Ukrainian-Jewish and Romanian-Jewish origin, was a clinical psychologist, graduating from Liberty State University in 1985, the same year he married Lydia's mother, a local accountant originally from Los Santos. During her teens, she legally changed her name to Lydia Smoterich-Barr, influenced by her mother's maiden name Smoterich, after her parents divorced in 2001. Her father later died of complications related to heart disease at age 50 when Lydia was seventeen years old. After Jack's death, Lydia's mother remarried and returned to San Andreas with Paul Hudson, a man whom she had previously done bookkeeping for during the 1990's.
Lydia graduated valedictorian from Alfred P. Southwick High School in 2009. She later attended Vespucci University and graduated magna cum laude from the ULSA School of Law in 2012. After clerking at both the Los Santos County Superior Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, she joined the San Andreas Legal Aid Bureau as an Associate Public Defender in 2014, where she practiced criminal law for 8 years.
Move to Blaine County
Dissatisfied with the limited family she had left in Liberty City, Lydia moved to Los Santos in 2012 to live closer to her mother and maternal step-father, who had been encouraging her to move to San Andreas since starting Law School. Since the death of Lydia's father, Paul Hudson worked hard to present himself as a father figure to Lydia, and was responsible for paying Lydia’s law school tuition. After graduating, she found an articleship with the Los Santos County Superior court, where she worked for 1 year. It was at this job where she first met Tate Goodwin. Lydia worked her way up to becoming one of the go-to clerks at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which helped inspire Lydia to pursue an arbitration career herself. With Paul incurring the brunt of her law school tuition, she felt an extreme sense of obligation to him, and she still regularly visits him to this day.
Career
San Andreas Legal Aid Bureau
For eight years, Lydia excelled in criminal law, famously arguing the widely publicized case of State v. Ramirez. Although she worked as counsel in several notorious trials, Lydia is best remembered as counsel for this case, in which Griselda Ramirez, a Honduran-American maid, was accused of murdering Los Santos City Councilwoman Zinnia Patterson, her husband, and a motel manager in Paleto Bay during Easter Weekend. In early 2019, after significant bargaining with the Los Santos County District Attorney, Lydia reluctantly negotiated a plea bargain under which Ramirez avoided 2nd degree murder charges but would serve 5 years in prison under involuntary manslaughter charges. Of the compromise, Lydia said, "Out of respect for Miss Ramirez's wishes, we had no choice but to say yes, but this isn't justice to me."
Judge of the Blaine County Superior Court
Following the resignation of Betty-Bea Getty in 2022, Lydia was appointed to serve a 10-year term as a justice of the Blaine County Superior Court, the principal trial court for criminal matters in Blaine County. After briefly considering a third-party nomination for Mayor of Sandy Shores, Lydia accepted the judicial appointment. Since her designation, Lydia has heard a number of cases concerning gang activity and organized crime.
Among local law enforcement, Lydia has a reputation as both a tough judge and a fair litigator. A staunch advocate of mandatory minimum sentences, she has publicly advocated its retention as a deterrent.
Marriage & Personal life
In 2016, Lydia married Tate Goodwin, a local medical resident with whom she met while liaising for a case involving the County Medical Examiner's Office. Not long after their wedding, the two faced frequent disagreement, and their marital troubles worsened slowly over time. While the two shared a mutual desire to bury the hatchet and save their relationship, marriage counselling did little to help matters, partially due to Tate's ambiguous sexuality and Lydia's flippant attitude. The two divorced quietly in early 2022, and following three weeks of mediation, their community assets, including a 5,000 sq. ft. sea ranch in the Tongva Hills, two Mercedes C-Class convertibles, and several investment funds, were liquidated and split evenly amongst the two. Since then, Lydia has lived independently in North Rockford Hills. She and Tate have not communicated since the separation.