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Saturday, October 04, 2008
Ind. Courts - More on: "Group calls for merit selection of Lake County judges"
Updating this ILB entry from Oct. 2nd, Patrick Guinane of the NWI Times reports today:
INDIANAPOLIS | An envoy of Lake County officials told a legislative panel Friday that depoliticizing the selection of four county judges would facilitate cost-cutting the General Assembly has mandated through new state property tax caps.Lake County Commissioner Roosevelt Allen, D-Gary, said moving the four county division judges under the merit selection process in place for most Lake County Superior Court judges would help the county's effort to trim its public defender payroll by more than $600,000. Overall, the county is eyeing $15 million in cuts to next year's budget.
"We are forced to make our county more efficient and more effective," Allen told the Legislature's Commission on Courts.
Judge John Pera, who was appointed, and Judge Julie Cantrell, who is running for re-election as a Democrat, said the disparate selection systems make it difficult for elected judges to share resources with the apolitical appointed judges.
"I can't even lend a bailiff to Judge Pera for a week when he goes on vacation because my employees can be political, and his employees cannot based on the code of judicial conduct," Cantrell told the legislative panel.
Lake and St. Joseph are the only Indiana counties in which most Superior Court judges are nominated by a panel of lawyers and civilians, appointed by the governor and stand for nonpartisan retention votes every six years.
Pera said the late Adam Benjamin, a former region legislator and congressman, believed merit selection would become "the model for the entire state" when he sponsored 1973 legislation that ended elections for most Lake County judges. Cantrell and the three other division judges handle small claims and criminal cases involving potential prison sentences of less than three years.
Indiana Supreme Court Justice Robert Rucker, who is chairman of Lake County's judicial nominating panel, said merit selection has been effective in bringing qualified women and minorities to the bench. Allen said Lake County had all white judges three decades ago but now has six women and five black people on the bench.
The Lake County envoy asked the Commission on Courts, a study panel, to recommend 2009 legislation allowing Cantrell and the other division judges to stand for nonpartisan retention votes in the future if the Legislature expands merit selection to their courts. No action was taken Friday.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 4, 2008 08:10 AM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions