INDIANAPOLIS | Will the third time be the charm?
The Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission last month formally sent Gov. Mitch Daniels its three recommended candidates to fill a vacancy on the Indiana Supreme Court.
They include a woman, Judge Loretta Rush, of Lafayette, and Indianapolis attorney Geoffrey Slaughter, a Crown Point native.
Indiana is one of only three states in the nation without a woman on its high court, and despite female finalists for the two most recent vacancies, the Republican governor appointed two men to the bench.
Daniels said regardless of demands from prominent lawyers and newspaper editorials that he select a woman, he is focused on appointing the best possible justice regardless of gender.
"I won't sacrifice merit, integrity, temperament," Daniels said. "In short, I won't sacrifice quality for that or any other demographic reason."
Justice Myra Selby was the first and thus far only woman to serve on the Indiana Supreme Court. Democratic Gov. Evan Bayh appointed Selby in 1995. She won a 10-year term in a 1998 retention election but left the court in 1999 to return to private practice.
Daniels said he's happy to use gender "to break a tie," but in his previous appointments, Steven David and Mark Massa were clearly the best candidates for the court, he said.
The governor has until Oct. 15 to select the new justice.
Sixteen women were among the 22 applicants seeking to replace Justice Frank Sullivan Jr., who left the Supreme Court in July to teach law at Indiana University. Of the six men who applied, two were named finalists by the nominating commission — Hamilton County Judge Steven Nation and Slaughter.
Slaughter, 49, was born in Gary, grew up in Crown Point and lived in Lake County until 2002. He was co-valedictorian of Crown Point High School in 1981 and attended Indiana University in Bloomington, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics, an MBA and his law degree.
He clerked for Lake Superior Judge James Letsinger for a summer before spending two years clerking for a federal judge in South Bend.
Slaughter, a Republican, was an associate at the Chicago law firm of Kirkland and Ellis for five years before working as special counsel in the Indiana attorney general's office under three Democratic attorneys general, including Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson.
Freeman-Wilson said Slaughter would be "an awesome justice."
"He's very thoughtful and deliberative in addition to really knowing the law and being very diligent and hardworking," Freeman-Wilson said. "He has a great demeanor that would lend itself well to the judiciary."
Slaughter is a partner at the Indianapolis law firm of Taft, Stettinius and Hollister, where he recently helped invalidate a portion of a Hammond ordinance charging higher rental registration fees to landlords who live outside the city.
During his Aug. 8 interview with the nominating commission, Slaughter said the Supreme Court's duty is to ensure it is "getting the law right."
"A judge's most solemn responsibility is to do his or her best to apply the law as those who wrote the law — whether it's a constitutional provision, a statutory provision or a regulation or rule — drafted it," he said.
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