Court to consider juvenile detention funding

Keywords Courts / neglect
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The Indiana Court of Appeals is considering a case this week that has statewide implications on who must pay to operate juvenile detention facilities – the state or individual counties.

Arguments are set April 17 in Marion County and St. Joseph County v. State of Indiana, 73A01-0705-CV-238, a suit the counties brought after Indiana tried to recover about $75 million it spent in operating juvenile detention facilities in those two areas. The court will decide whether the trial court erred in entering a decision favoring the state on grounds that state statute allowed it to recover those expenses, as well as holding that the counties lacked standing to bring the action and the action was barred by statute of limitations.

The three-judge panel assigned to hear the case is Chief Judge John Baker, and Judges Carr Darden and Melissa May. This argument, scheduled for 2 p.m. Central Time, will be at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, in Carter Hall, 233 University Center. This is the court’s seventh visit to that location.

This appeal comes following action from the General Assembly that adopted a law set to start July 1 that shifts funding of juvenile incarceration from the county to state level. Details of that reform were outlined in the sweeping property tax legislation that Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into law in March.

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