Southern Indiana’s overworked federal judges will receive some help from another federal court in Wisconsin.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana has operated with one less judge than normal since Judge Sarah Evans Barker moved to senior judge status in 2014. The district is still waiting for a nomination and appointment to fill the vacancy.
The court’s five current judges carried weighted caseloads of 915 cases per judge for the 12 months ending June 30, said Chief Deputy Clerk Alison Chestovich.
That means, for instance, that Judge Richard L. Young, who presides over the court’s Evansville division, is overseeing 915 cases there and in Indianapolis.
The judges’ caseload is expected to continue growing with the deaths in recent months of Senior Judge Larry McKinney and Magistrate Judge Denise La Rue.
“We are working really, really hard to stay on top of this burden,” Chestovich said.
Court officials said this week that the Southern Indiana district has accepted an offer of help from Wisconsin.
Beginning Oct. 1, two magistrate judges from the Eastern District of Wisconsin will assist with cases in Indianapolis as needed until March 1, 2018. In addition, Chief Judge Michael Reagan of the Southern District of Illinois has agreed to preside over a trial in Southern Indiana.
In the federal court system a state of “judicial emergency” exists when there is a vacancy with a weighted caseload of 600 or more case per judge, according to the court’s website.
That makes Southern Indiana the busiest district court in the three states making up the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the second busiest in the nation, according to Chestovich.
Covering about two-thirds of the state, the court operates divisions in Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Evansville and New Albany. It handled 4,574 cases in the 12-month period ending June 30, Chestovich said.
While the majority of those are filed in Indianapolis, each judge also presides over cases in other divisions, she said.
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