Editor's note
John Krull is director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.
It appears the slow-motion trainwreck that is Todd Rokita’s Indiana attorney generalship will inch even more slowly than thought to its inevitable smashup.
Marilyn Odendahl of The Indiana Citizen continued her record of superb reporting on Rokita’s assorted misadventures the other day. She broke the news that the Indiana Supreme Court granted the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission a 90-day extension of one of its investigations of Rokita’s conduct as attorney general.
There are at least three such investigations.
The first one ended with the attorney general being publicly reprimanded by the Supreme Court. Two of the five justices—Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Christopher Goff—wanted a more severe punishment meted out to Rokita. The two argued that Rokita, who had maligned in a national television appearance an Indiana doctor for performing a legal abortion for a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had been raped, had violated the ethical canons of the bar so severely that he merited more than the mild tut-tut-tut the court handed down.
As part of that settlement, Rokita signed an affidavit in which he said he had no defense against two of the charges the commission lodged against him.
Then—within hours of the announcement of the resolution of that investigation, a sweetheart deal for Rokita—the attorney general issued a combative statement saying he didn’t mean a word of it.
That prompted another investigation.
At least two Indiana attorneys, including one who had worked for the disciplinary commission, filed complaints. They argued that the attorney general hadn’t demonstrated the contrition the settlement required and that he must not have told the truth to either the commission or in his statement.
(To be fair, given Rokita’s track record, there also is the possibility he wasn’t telling the truth either time.)
This is the investigation that now likely will not be concluded until February of next year.
There also is a third known investigation. It was prompted by Rokita’s suggestion that anti-abortion activists should sue the Indiana Department of Health—his own client—if they weren’t able to get the personal pregnancy termination information they needed to harass people with whom they disagree.
The practical result of this extension is that the chances of Hoosiers knowing whether their lawyer even will be licensed to practice law before they go to the polls on Nov. 5 are now somewhere between none and nonexistent.
Rokita is running for re-election.
If he wins and then has his license to practice law suspended for a goodly period of time or is disbarred—a possibility—his replacement will be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the Indiana Senate.
That means the state’s lawyer will be chosen by politicians, not the people that lawyer is supposed to serve.
There are states in which the attorney general is appointed rather than elected, but that’s not the way, by law, the system is supposed to work in Indiana.
And we Hoosiers have gone long enough—in fact, far too long—with the office of attorney general acting as a threat to rather than a servant of the rule of law.
This whole sorry episode stopped being about Todd Rokita a long time ago.
He hasn’t hidden the fact that he regards the law and the courts with the reverence a dog has for a fire hydrant. In his relentless campaign to advance his political ambitions, he’s demonstrated there is no ethical guideline, rule or restraint he seems unwilling to violate.
So, the issue now is whether his ongoing transgressions are acceptable to the Indiana Supreme Court.
The longest serving chief justice in Indiana history, Randall Shepard, labored long and hard to establish the Supreme Court as a respected instrument and interpreter of constitutional principles and elevated professional standards.
He succeeded.
Rokita’s repeated challenges to the dignity of the court and the practice of law itself will define Loretta Rush’s tenure, likely to be at least the second-longest in state history, as chief justice.
If she and her fellow justices stand firm to restore the integrity of the courts and the office of attorney general, that will be her legacy.
And, if she and the justices don’t, well, that will be her legacy, too.
Doubtless, this is not a task Rush wanted.
But history often isn’t kind to either chief justices or the states they serve.
After all, history gave us Hoosiers Todd Rokita.
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