“The reason we did that was because of the work we’ve done on mental health and substance abuse and learning that the court system is a primary referral source to get people to treatment,” Rush said of hiring the specialist. “We thought we should do better.”
Rush talked about the work of the courts and the just-released Indiana Supreme Court 2023-24 annual report at a news conference Tuesday.
During the fiscal year from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, the Supreme Court received 748 cases, the most since 2019-20 when 913 cases arrived, according to the annual report. The court disposed of 735 cases either by denying transfer, dismissing the case or remanding the appeal, sending it back to the lower court. The justices heard oral arguments in 44 cases and issued 76 opinions, 60% of which were unanimous.
Trial court statistics are also charting an increase in new filings. For the calendar year 2023, 1.09 million cases were filed in Indiana superior and circuit courts. This is higher than the 950,557 cases filed in 2020 but still below 1.27 million filed in 2019.
Also in 2023, Rush said, the state courts held almost 20,000 involuntary mental health hearings, and the protective order registry had more than 1 million protective orders for workplace or domestic violence.
“I think there’s Hoosiers that are struggling, when I look at protective orders, involuntary mental health cases, some of the reasons why children are going into the welfare system,” Rush said. “I think the pandemic exacerbated some of the things that we’re seeing. The drugs and the overdoses, the children born with drugs in the system, I’ve not seen a decrease in any of that.”
‘Government emergency rooms’
Traveling the state and talking to judges, the Indiana justices have heard the stories of how local courts are struggling with the mental health crisis, Rush said. An estimated 70% of people in jail have a behavioral health issue, she said.
In the 2020-21 fiscal year, the Supreme Court and Office of Judicial Administration joined a multidisciplinary team that included the governor’s office, the General Assembly, the Family and Social Services Administration’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction, and the Indiana Sheriff’s Association to explore changes to policies and state laws to address the impact of mental health issues on the judicial system.
“We are often sort of the government emergency rooms with the types of cases we’re seeing with regard to drugs (and) domestic violence,” Rush said of the Indiana courts.
Kelly, the behavioral health administrator, is working in both civil and criminal courts. She has degrees in social work as well as a juris doctorate from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in addition to serving just over two years as deputy director of the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program, which provides counseling and mental health support for attorneys and law students in the state.
Rush said Kelly has the background the Supreme Court wanted and will be able to build the bridge between the law and behavioral health.
Since joining the court staff, Kelly has been holding training sessions on best practices with trial court judges and linking the judiciary with other resources, Rush said. The focus of Kelly’s work, Rush said, is to stop the revolving door, so that people having a mental health crisis are not engaging the police and taking up space in jail but rather are getting treatment so they can be productive citizens.
As an example of how Kelly can help, Rush pointed out that individuals on Medicaid will lose their coverage when they are sentenced to the county jail or the Indiana Department of Correction. They will need to reenroll once they are released in order to get medication or access treatment, but the process has many rules and regulations. Kelly could provide the needed assistance to the individuals and the courts, Rush said.
Hiring Kelly fits into the Indiana judiciary’s “overarching goal,” Rush said, of doing a better job with the “people that stand before our benches every day.” Kelly has been training trial court judges on best practices, implementing special programs and connecting with services outside the courtrooms to get people “back on track, safe in their community, working, taking care of their family,” Rush said.
While “a lot of good work is being done in our state,” Rush said, “we have a long way to go with regard to mental health. We just want to make sure that the courts as a public institution … (are) doing best by the people and that we’re linking them to other services in the community.”
The multifaceted work of the court
During the 2023-24 fiscal year, the Supreme Court held a special nighttime oral argument in February when the Indiana General Assembly was in session, so lawmakers could attend. In September, the justices traveled to Trine University to hear an oral argument, which was the 50th time since 1994 that the state’s highest court has heard a case outside of its courtroom in the Statehouse.
In addition, the Supreme Court updated the state’s child support guidelines, issued 14 amendments to court rules, provided a pathway for graduates of law schools not accredited by the American Bar Association to sit for the state’s bar exam, and celebrated its 207th birthday on Dec. 11, 2023.
Also, the Indiana Supreme Court handles cases of attorney and judicial misconduct.
The 2023-24 annual report noted the attorney disciplinary commission received 1,499 grievances against attorneys and dismissed 1,184 after finding no valid issue of misconduct. Comparatively, the judicial qualifications commission received 824 complaints filed against judges, outpacing the 549 and 609 complaints filed in fiscal years 2022-23 and 2021-22, respectively.
The Supreme Court’s 76 opinions issued in 2023-24 is the average for the previous five fiscal terms. However, the unanimous decisions have slipped from 80% in fiscal year 2022-23 and 77% in fiscal years 2021-22 and 2020-21.
Justice Christopher Goff, appointed in 2017, was the most proficient in 2023-24, writing 10 majority opinions and 12 nonmajority opinions, which either concurred or dissented or concurred in part and dissented in part. Rush was second, after authoring nine majority and five nonmajority opinions.
Several cases the Supreme Court heard in fiscal year 2023-24 presented issues of first impression, including orders for restitution in juvenile delinquency cases, the right to a jury trial in civil forfeiture cases, and the removal of an attorney against a criminal defendant’s wishes.
Rush said the high percentage of unanimous decisions is a reflection of the justices taking a “hard look” at each case. Also, she alluded to the Indiana State Bar Association’s recent survey in which more than 80% of the attorney respondents said Rush and associate justices Mark Massa and Derek Molter should be retained in the November election. Moreover, she said, other states have cited to the rulings from the Indiana Supreme Court and many of the Indiana justices have published articles in law review journals around the country.
“I think there’s an acknowledgement that you’ve got a stable court that has a huge respect for the rule of law and what our role is in living in a free democracy,” Rush said.