Indiana Court of Appeals Chief Judge John Baker makes lofty arguments for why the state needs major court reform to occur in the next legislative session.
But he can also break it down into layman’s language, offering evidence of the inefficient resource allocation in the state’s fractured court system.
“Why does it take a year and a half to get a divorce in one county when it takes six months in another?” Baker asked. “Divorce is hell anyway, why drag out the process of dissolving a bad marriage?”
The answer, he said, has to do with disproportionate case loads in which some Indiana counties have too many court cases, too few judges to hear them and no capacity to help each other out.
But also part of the answer, he said, is what he calls the “balkanization” of Indiana’s courts — a fragmented system of mutually hostile units resistant to cooperation and change.
It’s that system that he and others cite when talking about streamlining Indiana’s judicial system and making more efficient use of the $400 million in state tax dollars spent on it last year.
The time for reform seems ripe: The number of court cases in Indiana rose by more than 16 percent in the last decade but funding and resources haven’t kept pace.
State legislators aren’t likely to add more money to the judicial budget soon. Last week, state budget officials estimated a $700 million shortfall in revenues going into the biennial budget-making session that starts in January.
“When resources get tight, people have to get more efficient,” Baker said.
That’s why he argues — with passion — in favor a reform plan laid out in 2009 by the Indiana Judicial Conference, whose membership is made up of full-time judges in Indiana.
The plan, called “A New Way Forward,” proposed major changes in the court system at the local level.
Among them: Redefining county lines as judicial boundaries. It proposes splitting the county courts into 26 districts that would share resources and caseloads.
Judges in one county with a heavy load of civil cases could get help from judges in another county with a lighter load. Criminal cases would still be heard in the counties where the crimes occurred.
Another proposal calls for abolishing the fragmented structure of circuit courts, superior courts, probate courts, small claims courts, and city and town courts. They’d be replaced with one level of trial court judges who could hear all kinds of cases.
Both proposals, which would require legislative approval, have already faced some opposition.
Some of the strongest is coming from the 75 city and town courts, staffed by judges who aren’t required to be lawyers and who typically hear cases involving infractions and traffic citations.
They’re not eager to see their positions eliminated.
Rhonda Cook, director of government affairs for the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, said many communities with city and town courts also don’t want to lose the revenues brought in by the fines and fees collected by their city and town courts.
“They think their courts as effective,” Cook said. “They see them as operating efficiently.”
There is much in “The New Way Forward” plan that is unlikely to make its way into legislation in the next session of the General Assembly, Baker said.
That includes the recommendation that Indiana give up its hodgepodge system of electing judges and adopt a merit system like the one used for the Indiana Supreme Court and the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The other is a proposal to move more of the funding decisions for the courts to the state level. It would be similar to the shift that’s occurred with K-12 school funding following the passage of property tax caps two years ago.
Baker doesn’t expect the changes he wants to come quickly.
“My experience with reform in Indiana is that it moves a little faster than the glaciers.”
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