Marion County judge suspended without pay for 45 days for misconduct

A Marion County Superior Court judge has been suspended without pay for 45 days for failing to adequately supervise his staff and take timely action on criminal and expungement cases.

The Indiana Supreme Court decision issued Thursday comes a couple months after the state’s Commission on Judicial Qualifications filed five charges against Judge Jose Salinas.

They include failure to adequately supervise his court staff, failure to timely and properly take judicial action in more than 40 cases, failure to timely and properly expunge criminal cases, failure to conduct a hearing to determine a defendant’s competency and failure to supervise court staff to ensure case entries and orders were properly entered into the case management system.

Salinas did not immediately reply to a request for comment Thursday afternoon from The Indiana Lawyer.

In December 2021, Salinas reported to the commission that a defendant had been improperly held in the Marion County Jail for 166 days, or nearly six months, because one of his staff members failed to enter a release code in the case management system.

Following that error, Salinas and other judicial offers began developing new standard procedures for the county’s criminal courts to ensure the same issue wouldn’t happen again, but errors continued, according to the state Supreme Court’s opinion.

During an investigation, the commission discovered that, between August 2015 and August 2025, there were criminal cases in Salinas’s court that were missing case entries. In one case, Salinas failed to set a future court date for a defendant participating in drug treatment court. The defendant was terminated from the court and a warrant that should’ve been issued was not issued until four years later, the opinion states.

The opinion also cited some examples of cases that were dismissed because hearing or trial dates were canceled and not reset soon enough. In one case, the judge canceled a March 5, 2020, bench trial for unlawful possession of a syringe and didn’t take further action on the case for nearly six years.

The court concluded that a 45-day unpaid suspension was appropriate because Salinas’s misconduct adversely affected litigants and victims.

The high court noted that while Salinas often self-reported the errors in his courtroom and made efforts to correct those issues, many errors continued. But the court also noted that Salinas has no prior discipline against him and fully cooperated with the commission throughout the disciplinary proceedings.

The court also said the judge has implemented several measures to prevent issues from developing in the future. For instance, he required staff training, and he reviews inmate lists daily to ensure their timely release.

Salinas, who took office in 2007, starts his suspension Dec. 7. He will be automatically reinstated on Jan. 21, 2027.

The opinion was written per curiam. Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush and justices Mark Massa, Christopher Goff and Derek Molter concur.

Justice Geoffrey Slaughter concurs in part and dissents in part, believing the sanction is too lenient, according to court documents.

Slaughter did not issue a separate opinion.

The case is In the Matter of the Honorable Jose D. Salinas, Judge of the Marion Superior Court 23, 26S-JD-312.