I know some people think the Indiana Supreme Court let Judges Scheibenberger and Felts off too easy, giving the former only a three-day suspension for his outburst in a courtroom and the latter a reprimand for his DUI. This seems like a better case for outrage, though:
A Marion County judge who faced removal from the bench after his office mishandled an order setting aside a man's rape conviction instead will serve a 60-day suspension without pay.
The Indiana Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday ended nearly a year of disciplinary proceedings against Judge Grant Hawkins, who has been on paid suspension since November. He will begin serving the unpaid suspension for judicial misconduct today and could return to his major-felony courtroom in Marion Superior Court as soon as May.
Despite stinging critiques of Hawkins by two of the court's five justices, they did not go so far as removal, which had been recommended late last year by a panel of three appointed judges and the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications.
The case involved delayed orders and haphazard file-keeping in several post-conviction appeal cases. In one, a man waited in prison nearly a year after Hawkins' court issued an order that should have freed him.
Scheibenberger hurt nothing except the dignity of the court. Felts paid the appropriate penalty for a first-time DUI. Their rebukes by the Supreme Court, mild though they may have been, served to embarrass them in the public eye, probably a greater punishment than for most people. This judge's incompetence or indifference caused an innocent man to spend a extra year behind bars. Sixty days without pay hardly seems sufficient.
