The Indiana Senate approved a bill reducing local attorney input into who serves on the judicial nominating commissions for Lake and St. Joseph counties Monday despite objections from Democratic senators, one of whom insinuated the changes were triggered by anonymous complaints from candidates who had lost out on judge appointments.
The first Hispanic judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana has officially taken his seat on the bench.
As he marked the two-month anniversary of his presidency, Joe Biden had not nominated anyone to either the federal bench or a U.S. Attorney’s Office, which distinguished him from his two most recent predecessors. One retired member of Indiana’s judiciary, however, is calling attention to the worrisome problem that beyond open positions, the state has no clearly defined process for identifying qualified Hoosiers to fill the vacancies.
A half-century ago two Indiana legislators, a Democrat from Gary and a Republican from Kokomo, set forth to improve our courts. The Democrat was my father, Adam Benjamin Jr. The Republican was Elwood “Bud” Hillis. The Lake Superior Court selects judges on merit because of their efforts.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced his intent to nominate a “trailblazing slate” of judicial nominees, a field that includes Black, Muslim American and Asian American Pacific Islander candidates for federal courts and for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Warsaw solo practitioner Karin McGrath has been appointed as Kosciusko Superior Court I Judge, Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office announced today. She will succeed Judge David Cates who died in December.
A bill that would change how superior court judges are nominated in Lake and St. Joseph counties was uniformly opposed by lawyers and judges from those counties in a Senate hearing Wednesday but narrowly advanced on a 5-4 vote.
Legislation that has drawn fire from bar associations and members of the legal community who say proposed changes to judicial appointments would politicize the trial court benches in Lake and St. Joseph counties will be heard Wednesday by a Senate committee.
With spring comes the start of the period in which many justices have announced their retirement from the United States Supreme Court. Some progressives say it is time for Justice Stephen Breyer to go, without delay. Other liberal voices have said Breyer, the oldest justice, should retire when the court finishes its work for the term, usually by early summer.
The Judicial Conference of the United States is asking Congress to create 79 new judgeships in federal courts across the country, including adding two new permanent judges in the Southern Indiana District Court.
Your publication recently printed an article discussing the Indiana State Bar Association’s objections to Indiana Senate Joint Resolution 16. The bar association’s complaint about SJR 16, and the slant of the article, is that the resolution proposes to “strip” Hoosier voters of the power to retain Indiana appellate court judges and Supreme Court justices. I do not believe that complaint is well-founded.
The Allen Superior Court Judicial Nominating Commission announced Monday the three judicial officers are finalists to fill an upcoming vacancy due to Judge Charles F. Pratt’s pending retirement.
When Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered her first Supreme Court majority opinion Thursday, ruling against an environmental group that had sought access to government records, it strayed from informal precedent that new justices’ first opinions be unanimous.
The undeniable truth is that there is a long legislative history in this nation of powerful majorities diminishing and silencing the voices of minorities. While I have no reason to believe the motive of the current judicial selection legislation for Lake and St. Joseph counties is racial, this law will undoubtedly have a disproportionally negative effect on citizens who happen to be racial minorities.
As litigation and legislation that could change the structure of judicial selection in St. Joseph County proceeds, the St. Joseph County Judicial Nominating Commission is accepting applications to fill a vacancy that will occur in the spring.
Lawyers and judges interested in applying for an upcoming vacancy on the Indiana Court of Appeals bench may now do so, the Indiana Supreme Court announced Friday.
Gov. Eric Holcomb has been presented a second time with the same slate of nominees to fill a vacancy on the St. Joseph Superior Court, potentially curing an injunction that had blocked the governor’s appointment after a local commission member sued, claiming two fellow members were ineligible.
For the second time this year, the Indiana State Bar Association is publicly opposing legislation targeting judicial selection in Indiana, this time speaking against a bill that it says would “unnecessarily change a working system” for judicial selection in Lake and St. Joseph counties.
The Indiana Supreme Court on Monday issued an order appointing Miller, now a senior judge, back to the court she attempted to retire from last year. The order authorizes Miller to serve as a St. Joseph Superior Court judge until May 1 as a fight over her potential successor plays out in another court.
A bill in the Legislature would restructure the composition of judicial nominating commissions in Lake and St. Joseph counties. Currently, an even number of attorneys and nonattorney members are appointed by local stakeholders, but the proposal would reduce attorney representation, which has prompted a backlash in the northern Indiana legal communities.