Courts

In a ruling that could be the first of its kind in the nation, a divided Indiana Supreme Court Thursday afternoon reversed a lower court’s ruling that a Kokomo subdivision’s covenant restricting rentals violated the federal Fair Housing Act because of potential racial implications.The state’s highest court has been quiet on the issue since hearing arguments in October 2006, but it simultaneously decided to grant transfer and issue an opinion in the case of Villas West II of Willowridge v. Edna…

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Thursday morning on whether a federal magistrate in Indianapolis should be elevated to district judge for the Southern District of Indiana.A nomination vote for Magistrate William Lawrence is on the committee’s agenda for the 10 a.m. meeting. The Indianapolis magistrate, who’s been on the bench since 2002, went before the Senate committee in early May for his confirmation hearing. The president had selected him in February for the seat.If affirmed by the…

An Indiana case goes up to the U.S. Supreme Court in the final week of March to determine whether a man who’s been found competent to stand trial is competent to represent himself in those court proceedings.Before that happens, though, the defense team representing the Indianapolis man is at the University of Illinois College of Law in Chicago getting a test run today in a mock argument of Indiana v. Ahmad Edwards, No. 07-208, which will go before the nation’s highest court…

An Indianapolis attorney is getting one last warning from the Indiana Supreme Court before being suspended indefinitely from practicing law.Attorney Wilburn G. Lowry of Marion County received an additional 90 days on his suspension handed down nearly a year ago, with the court specifically noting in its Jan. 11, 2008, order that “any future suspension for failure to meet CLE or dues requirements shall result in an indefinite suspension.”In the order In the Matter of Contempt of the Supreme Court of…

For the first time, the Indiana Supreme Court today affirmed a trial court’s sentence of life without parole for a Lafayette mother who had pleaded guilty to torturing and killing her stepdaughter.In Michelle Gauvin v. State of Indiana, No. 79S00-0702-CR-65, the state’s highest court ruled 4-1 in a direct appeal that Tippecanoe Superior Judge Thomas Busch correctly sentenced the Lafayette mother for murder, confinement, and neglect of her 4-year-old stepdaughter, Aiyana. The girl died from head trauma in March 2005 after months…