The Indiana Supreme Court has announced that Chief Justice Randall Shepard will retire in March 2012. My impression is that he has done solid work as a Chief Justice over the last 25 years. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, I have not noticed particular partisanship in the Indiana Supreme Court. I’ve certainly questioned their decisions from time to time, but have not suspected anyone of having an ideological axe to grind. I suspect that the Chief Justice has something to do with that.
Probably the biggest complaint I’ve heard about the Chief Justice does not concern his legal acumen, but concerns that the Supreme Court is overstepping its authority (or perhaps exercising that authority more vigorously than is prudent) when it comes to administering the trial courts. The Supreme Court certainly has the authority to review the orders and decisions of trial court judges, but it’s less clear when and how the Supreme Court should be able to tell trial courts to allocate the administrative resources of those courts. Over the tenure of the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court has been more active in those areas with things like attempts at balancing case loads and trying to develop a centralized computer system for the courts and encouraging them to sign on.
I do not have direct knowledge of those administrative matters; so I can’t say with a great deal of certainty how well grounded the complaints are. Despite (I am told — I was a teenager and not paying attention to such things at the time) initial concerns about Chief Justice Shepard’s youth and relative lack of experience when he was nominated to the position by Governor Orr in the mid-80s, he has done credit to his office, and I can only hope that someone of equal ability will be selected to fill his shoes.
There have been a lot of improvements in the legal profession during Shepherd’s tenure. However, one area that most attorneys I talk to that needs work are the commissions that handle discipline of judges and attorneys. There is an appearance of a lack of consistency and fairness in how matters are treated. I did a study a year or so ago showing that there has hardly been a single big firm attorney disciplined in the last three years of Lundberg. (That’s as far back as I went.) It’s almost always sole practitioners, small firm attorneys and attorneys who practice of Indy. I find it hard to believe that the big firm attorneys didn’t even have a DUI during the period I looked at. I think this is an area that needs to be looked at closely.