10101997 - News Article - Judges seek family court

Judges seek family court
NWI Times
Oct 10, 1997
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/judges-seek-family-court/article_cd528124-fe14-5593-a9edb23feea23c5c.html
Porter County caseloads
                                        1994        1995       1996
Pending divorces              911          943         924
Delinquency referrals*   1,123      1,187      1,337
Child abuse, neglect*     1,616      1,482      1,333
* About 30 to 35 percent of cases ultimately come before the court.
Sources: Indiana Family and Social Services Administration,
Porter County Juvenile Probation, Porter County Court Administrator.


A family court is in the wind in Porter County even though the prospect didn't survive the last General Assembly.

Porter Superior Court Judge Thomas Webber said he's not sure a unified family court system can work here, but the judges will apply for a grant to the Indiana Supreme Court to find out.

The state Supreme Court has earmarked $250,000 for trial court judges working with families at risk, according to Larry Grau, director of the Indiana Court Improvement Project.

The money originally was awarded to the high court under a nationwide federal initiative to improve court services to children. The Supreme Court decided to redistribute the funds to the lower courts through 10 to 15 grants with $25,000 limits.

Besides Porter County's family court proposal, the project will consider plans for improving coordination of services and the training of court personnel and support services.

Judges are placing more emphasis on family issues, according to Grau, on the theory it's preventative medicine. "They're seeing it as a way to stop court procedures later on by addressing family situations early," he said.

The county's proposal, drawn by Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary Harper, must reach the Indiana Supreme Court by Oct. 17, although Grau said the deadline may be extended because of the many inquiries about the project.

Grau said the successful applicants may be contacted as early as Nov. 3.

Webber said the county's six judges will take up the issue at today's regular judges' meeting.

"We'll fine-tune or approve Judge Harper's proposal," said Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford, the court's senior judge.

Bradford added the judges hope to use a grant to help them gather information.

"We don't know how many cases would need to be funneled one way or another to one judge," Bradford said. "We don't know if it's five or 500."

A unified family court system assigns families in crisis, from child abuse to divorce to domestic battery, to a single judge.

Currently, it's not unusual for members of the same family to have related cases in three or four courts, and it's not unusual for the fates of children in abuse, divorce or other crisis situations to linger with the courts for years.

An effort by Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard to get the legislature to approve a family court pilot program failed during the last General Assembly. Some $300,000 would have been divided among three courts to test the waters.

State Sen. William Alexa, D-Valparaiso, said this week the Commission on Courts has voted to support another legislative effort, but the reality is the judges are free to restructure their courts without a legislative initiative.

"The money was an incentive to come up with something creative," Alexa said.

"There's really nothing they need from the legislature to authorize that kind of an experiment. They could do it with local funds, government funds, donated funds, or they could do it for no money by just changing the way they do things."

If the Porter County judges' proposal to the Supreme Court is denied, Bradford said he still sees benefit in going through the process. Although he doesn't foresee the legislature coming through with a family court program for at least two years. Bradford believes the county will be ready when the legislature does approve the program.

In the interim, Harper, who also oversees juvenile court, said the process has forced the judges to consider many questions. Among their queries: Does every dissolution case go into family court? Does it need to happen in a childless marriage? And how does the court track extended or step-families who often have significant impact on a child?