INDIANAPOLIS —
A new effort by Indiana’s top court to stem the number of mortgage foreclosures in Indiana reflects a larger trend in the state’s legal system: An explosion of civil and criminal cases brought on by the recession.
The increase in foreclosures — up 50 percent in just five years — triggered a new state law last year that gave homeowners facing foreclosure the right to a settlement conference with their lender to explore alternatives. But so few homeowners took advantage of the new law that the Indiana Supreme Court has had to step in, training more than 1,000 lawyers and judges in both the new law and the financial mechanics of foreclosure.
On Tuesday, the Indiana Supreme Court and the Indiana Foreclosure Prevention Network announced an expansion of that program throughout the state.
It’s not the only place where the top court has intervened in response to an overburdened court system. More than 2 million civil and criminal cases were filed in the Indiana courts in 2008, according to the most recent report on the state’s court system. The numbers for 2009, due soon, are expected to meet or exceed that record number of cases.
As Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard noted to lawmakers earlier this year: “It’s a tangible marker of a society under stress.” The rising caseloads prompted Shepard to ask state lawmakers to let him bring senior magistrates out of retirement to help alleviate the caseload. Those retired magistrates, authorized to preside over some civil and criminal matters, will return to the benches in county courthouses around the state this summer.
Shepard made his request in his 2010 State of the Judiciary presentation to the Indiana General Assembly in January. The title of his speech: “Dealing With The Recession: A Court System That Won’t Roll Over.”
In it, Shepard noted both the record increase in cases and the efforts that the courts have taken to alleviate the stress. The record numbers, for example, include a 25 percent increase since 1999 in matters involving abused and neglected children. But as Shepard noted, the number of new volunteers trained as court-appointed special advocates for children has also risen: Up 26 percent in 2009 from the year before, and up 51 percent from the year 2007.
Also on the rise: Protective orders, with a 65 percent increase filed since 1999. The number of cases in which a “pauper counsel” was approved — providing legal counsel for those who can’t afford a lawyer — went from 90,812 in 1999 to 144,141 in 2008.
Shepard believes the rising caseload, which has escalated over the last three years, can be attributed in part to an economy that tanked in late 2007 and is just now beginning to recover. “More businesses short on cash flow suing people who cannot pay their bills, more families dissolving in divorce, more abused and neglected children, more receiverships, more foreclosures. In short, if it’s bad and you can put a name on it, it shows up in our courthouses,” Shepard told Indiana lawmakers.
The numbers show up in the recently published annual report of the Indiana Supreme Court. In the three-volume report, available online at the court’s website, is a county-by-county accounting of the kinds of civil and criminal cases filed. One potential piece of good news: Murder cases, which reached a decade’s peak of 279 in 2002, are trending down, with 209 murder cases filed in Indiana courts in 2008.
Maureen Hayden is statehouse bureau chief for CNHI’s Indiana newspapers. She can be reached at maureen.hayden@indianamediagroup.com.
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