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Friday, November 25, 2005

Ind. Courts - Res Gestae article on accessing Indiana appellate court records

Here is my third monthly column in Res Gestae, the monthly journal of the Indiana State Bar Association. Titled "Indiana appellate court records – how accessible?" it appears on pages 35-38 of the November 2005 issue.

[My monthly columns are also accessible via the link labeled "Some of my publications are available here," in the right column, beneath the search box.]

Also in this month's Res Gestae, IU Law-Indianapolis professor emeritus William Hodes has written a "viewpoint" piece titled "Making retention elections meaningful: It all depends on the meaning of 'meaningful."

My impression is that Prof. Hodes was not actually responding to my column, but using it as a jumping off place to make his own points about another issue. When invited by Res Gestae, I wrote a response. You may read both the "Viewpoint" and the response at pages 41-42 of the November issue. Some quotes from my response:

While anticipating an upcoming major battle, sports teams are always warned: “Don’t look beyond today’s game!” . . .

Today’s game, to my mind, involves addressing issues raised by efforts such as SJR 1, which seek to change Indiana’s process for selecting appellate judges and justices back to one where these judicial positions are elective, or subject to confirmation by the Indiana Senate.

Professor Hodes’ comments, however, address instead upcoming legal issues related to the application of Republican Party v. White (US SCt 2002) to Indiana judicial elections. Cases are pending in federal courts in a number of jurisdictions, including Indiana, challenging judicial conduct rules as unconstitutionally infringing on the free-speech rights of incumbents and applicants running for judgeships.

The pending Indiana challenge is Indiana Right to Life v. Shepard (4:04-cv-71), filed 9/29/04 in the ND Indiana, Lafayette, before Judge Sharp. . . .

We do not yet know whether this challenge to the Indiana Canons will be successful. If it does succeed, we do not know whether or how the ruling would be applicable to ballot questions on retention, as opposed to judicial elections. These will be part of upcoming encounters, the ones that Professor Hodes is anticipating, rather than today’s efforts to rewrite the Judicial Article of Indiana’s Constitution, the efforts that I addressed in my column last month.

[More] See also this 11/9/05 ILB entry; particularly the final paragraph.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 25, 2005 03:43 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts