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Saturday, May 02, 2009

Ind. Courts - More on yesterday's post on the St. Joe judges selection bill

In this post yesterday I suggested:

Rather than a new, unnecessary sixth panel of the Court of Appeals, if we are going to be adding judges with no demonstrated workload need, wouldn't it be preferable to add two new justices to the Supreme Court of Indiana?
I quoted from an article calling for more women on the U.S. Supreme Court and said the same rationale for gender diversity applied with respect to Indiana's high court.

IU LAW prof Joel Schumm sent this note:

Great post--and great point. Every class I teach I find a way to pull up a picture of the Indiana Supreme Court. "What jumps out at you about this picture?" "It's all men," they always respond.

I once heard Justice Selby speak about sometimes talking with school children visiting the courtroom. They'd look around the walls at the pictures of the 100+ justices and ask "where are the girls?" The kids get it; I hope the adults do, too.

Another reader wrote this morning, pointing me to the front-page story by Charlie Savage today in the NY Times, headlined "Wider World of Choices to Fill Souter’s Vacancy." Some quotes:
When President Ronald Reagan decided to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court in 1981, he had to turn to Sandra Day O’Connor, an obscure state judge.

When President Bill Clinton decided to add a second woman to the court, he confronted a world in which women were just beginning to climb the ranks of big law firms and ranking female judges, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were still scarce.

Today, as President Obama moves to pick his first Supreme Court nominee as a successor to retiring Justice David H. Souter — a choice many political observers expect will be a woman — he finds a vastly altered scene, with women holding dozens of seats on the nation’s appellate courts, occupying dean’s offices at prestigious law schools, and serving in some of the highest political offices in the nation.

“The legal landscape has been totally transformed,” said Deborah Rhode, a Stanford University law professor whose research includes gender issues related to the legal profession. “Obama has a lot of possibilities.”

More than 200 women are federal district and appeals court judges, representing about a quarter of each bench, according to statistics compiled in 2008 by the American Bar Association. More than a hundred women are judges on top state courts, and a third of state chief justices are women. * * *

Yet despite the rising prominence of women in the legal profession and the political world, the Supreme Court remains something of a male-dominated throwback.

Again, the same rationale applies. While the legal landscape (including our own Court of Appeals where 5 of the 15 judges are now women) has been transformed over the past dozen years, our Supreme Court is composed of five men. And it always has been except for the brief interlude of Justice Myra Selby, who was appointed by Governor Bayh in 1995 and served until 1999. As justices in Indiana may serve until they reach 75, it seems unlikely that two or three slots will open up in the foreseeable future.

So the only answer would be to add more seats, changing the Supreme Court from 5 members to 7 members. This would not require an amendment to the Indiana Constitution, the expansion of the Court may be readily accomplished by statute.

Arguments for this answer have in the past been rebuffed with statements that there was not enough workload to justify expanding the Supreme Court by two.

But that reasoning falls with the ready passage this month by both houses of the General Assembly of HEA 1491, which would add three new judges to the Court of Appeals with absolutely no showing of need.

______________________

For more, see this ILB entry from October 6, 2007, headed "Few women in Indiana are appointed to high judiciary posts."

From August 29, 2007, this ILB entry began: "Indiana has the only top court in the nation with no women members, and many in the State of Idaho are doing their best to keep Idaho from becoming the second such state."

For an article from earlier this month, the Knoxville News had a report by Georgiana Vines on April 19th headlined "It's a woman's world on the Tennessee Supreme Court ." Three of the five members are now women.

And back to yesterday's point about the male U.S. Supreme Court justices considering strip searches of 13-year-old girls as nothing out of the ordinary, a story today underscores the differing viewpoints between the genders. The headline to the story in Delaware Online by Maureen Milford is "Top justice sent racy video to colleagues: Myron Steele used state e-mail to share video with 38 male friends, lawyers." Some quotes:

Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Myron T. Steele, the national face of Delaware's powerful and highly respected courts, used his state e-mail account Monday to send a sexually suggestive video to 38 men. * * *

Steele said Wednesday that he viewed the e-mail video attachment as a harmless joke that would not offend anyone.

"I don't think there was anything offensive to women," Steele said. "I forwarded it to people I thought would find it amusing." * * *

Despite the fact it was on his state e-mail account, Steele said he didn't view it as a public e-mail because he didn't expect it to be "broadcast widely."

"I apologize to anyone who might have seen it who might be offended," Steele said. "All the ones who know me know there's nothing behind this. They know my character and history and that this was just a frivolous joke. Probably, in retrospect, I wouldn't send it again." * * *

Susan Koniak, a professor of law at Boston University School of Law and co-author of "The Law and Ethics of Lawyering" legal casebook, said Steele should resign.

"I can't tell you how offended I was," said Koniak, who agreed to view a copy of the video for The News Journal. "Don't think anything about how wonderful a judge he is makes up for doing this. It undermines the judiciary completely."

Describing the video as "soft porn," Koniak said most people will be reluctant to comment on the incident because Steele is such an influential jurist. Delaware's Supreme Court often hears appeals on matters related to the nation's biggest corporations, including the 2005 high-profile shareholder suit involving executive compensation at The Walt Disney Co.

Interestingly, a former IU law prof finds an additional issue:
William Hodes, a professor emeritus of law at Indiana University School of Law, who helped draft the recent American Bar Association revision of the code of judicial conduct, said "the chief justice ought to have a little bit more self-control, certainly, because it was on his work account."

Hodes said the incident raises the issue of Steele fraternizing with lawyers who go before him. Somebody who had a recent, pending or impending matter before the court could file an ethics complaint, he said.

In Delaware, complaints concerning a judge are filed with the state's Court on the Judiciary.

"Who were these lawyers and why were they selected? Obviously, they're buddies," Hodes said.

Steele said most of the e-mail recipients were former clerks. Other recipients included lawyers, another Delaware judge and a Delaware businessman.

The story includes a link to the video.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 2, 2009 05:00 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts