Weaver: Judge disclosure forms need to be more accessible

The Indiana Supreme Court has done many things in recent years to make the state’s judiciary more accessible and transparent by taking advantage of increasing technological advances.

Mycase.IN.gov provides access to court documents and hearing dates for cases in counties across the state.

Arguments before the state’s high court and the Indiana Court of Appeals are livestreamed and recorded and stored online so they can be watched later.

But, in one key area, Indiana’s judiciary has fallen behind. It has not made the annual disclosure forms filed by the state’s 575 judges and judicial officers immediately available by posting them on the internet.

Indiana’s executive and legislative branches took that step years ago. Internet users can easily look up the disclosure forms of the governor or a state legislator and see any business interests or gifts they have disclosed.

Disclosure forms for federal judges also are posted online. And many state courts across the country are doing the same.

As reporter Alexa Shrake notes in her story on Page 1, half of the 48 states that require judge disclosure forms have posted them online, and that number is on the rise.

But in Indiana, requests for judicial disclosure forms must be submitted through an online portal to the Office for Court Administration.

Fulfilling those requests can take the office days or weeks. It took more than three weeks for the office to fill The Indiana Lawyer’s request for the disclosure forms of all five Indiana Supreme Court justices and the 15 members of the Indiana Court of Appeals.

Attorneys, litigants and the public deserve immediate access to this information to better assess whether a judge has a conflict that should require his or her recusal from any given case.

The move toward more immediate openness also would help maintain confidence in the judiciary at a time when it is under increasing national fire.

Thankfully, Indiana Chief Justice Loretta Rush says the court’s administrative office is open to considering making the reports available online.

In the meantime, as a service to our readers, The Indiana Lawyer will take steps to make the information more readily available by gradually posting all Indiana judges’ disclosure forms online over the next several months.

Our daily email newsletter also will feature details from a different judge’s disclosure form every Wednesday, starting next week. (Subscribe to the newsletter at theindianalawyer.com/newsletters.)

Transparency in government is paramount, and that is why The Indiana Lawyer is taking these steps.

The Indiana General Assembly could do plenty more to make the disclosure forms for each branch of government more meaningful.

For instance, the forms require judges and statewide elected officials to disclose stock holdings valued at more than $10,000. But Hoosiers could get a better sense of the depth of an official’s financial ties to a business by knowing whether the full value is $10,001, $1 million or $10 million.

State officials also must disclose any employers outside of state government, but they are not required to disclose their job titles or duties. It makes a big difference whether the job is as a low-level clerk or the CEO.

I see additions to the disclosure forms as necessary. But, given the obstinate nature of the Legislature on such issues, I doubt I’ll ever see them in my lifetime.

So, for now, I’ll settle for judicial disclosure forms being posted online.•

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Greg Weaver is editor of The Indiana Lawyer. Reach him at [email protected]