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Thursday, March 26, 2009
Ind. Courts - Op-ed piece on merit retention by State Bar President Bill Jonas
Indiana State Bar Association President Bill Jonas has written a long and thoughtful op-ed piece on judicial retention. You may access the article in its entirety here. Some quotes:
Now is the time for Hoosiers to speak out in favor of a uniform, non-partisan judicial selection method to insure judicial independence for all of Indiana. If we succeed in this endeavor, we will have taken an important step toward the “more perfect union” that our forefathers envisioned. * * *Some argue that Indiana’s system of electing trial judges is working well. Consider, however, two events from our state during the first week of March. First is the settlement of a long-running multi-party dispute between the mayor of Muncie and her political allies, the Delaware County Prosecutor and his political allies, and Delaware County government. In a March 6 story printed by the Muncie Star-Press, Muncie Mayor Sharon McShurley stated “It was clear that justice was for sale in Delaware County.”
The same day, the Indiana Supreme Court resolved disciplinary charges against a former LaPorte County Senior Judge who resigned from the bench and from the practice of law. Chief Justice Shepard wrote:
The charges stem from the judge’s conduct in two separate cases. In the first, [it was alleged] that [the judge], when he was the elected judge, suspended a significant portion of a man’s prison term … in exchange for the man’s father’s $100,000 contribution to two court programs. [T]he second allegation charges that [the judge] … instituted contempt proceedings against the Sheriff of LaPorte County for having lawfully turned over [the judge’s] daughter-in-law’s nephew to Michigan authorities, then continued to preside over the nephew’s Indiana case."* * * For the last 75 years no state has adopted anything other than a merit-based method of judicial selection. Over this time period, professional and academic thought has united in the view that best governmental practices dictate a judiciary selected, insofar as possible, by merit selection. This view has been endorsed by the Lake County Bar Association, St. Joseph County Bar Association, Indiana State Bar Association, the Indiana Judicial Conference, the National Center for State Courts and the American Bar Association-- and by the League of Women Voters and St. Joseph County Chamber of Commerce. It has the editorial endorsement of the South Bend Tribune and The Indiana Lawyer as well.
The Indiana State Bar Association has repeatedly endorsed merit-retention for judges, most recently in the summer of 2008 when its board voted to support an effort to create a uniform, statewide plan for merit-retention of trial judges. Merit-retention, not partisan political election, is the preferred method of judicial selection for those who want trial judges free to make rulings on the facts and the law, and not out of fear or in search of favor. Adopting merit-retention statewide will bring better government; it is a move which will further our pursuit of that “more perfect union” our forefathers began.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 26, 2009 10:32 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts