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Panel takes no action on Lake County judge
The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN)
June 16, 2004
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.proxy.portagelibrary.info/resources/doc/nb/news/1038E73B15211EFF?p=AWNB
A panel appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court made no recommendation on whether a Lake County judge suspended for six months last year for not reducing a backlog of cases should be removed from office.
The three-judge panel found in its Monday ruling that Lake Superior Court Judge Joan Kouros violated canons of the court, has committed conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, but her conduct "for the most part, has not been `willful.' "
"By all accounts, she is a good judge in all respects excepting gross inefficiencies and delays in performing her tasks," the report said.
The review began in 2000 when an attorney complained that several inmates were languishing in jail because of unprocessesed paperwork.
The Indiana Judicial Qualifications Commission has 30 days to decide whether to again recommend Kouros be removed. If it does so, she would be suspended with pay, said Meg Babcock, counsel for the commission.
Kouros would then have 30 days to respond.
The state Supreme Court would then have to decide on whether to remove Kouros from the bench.
Her attorney, Kevin McGoff, said he was heartened by the "no decision," though he said the report gave him no particular insight to where the high court could be headed.
"In the end, it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide," he said.
Kouros said during a hearing in April before the panel that after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984, an obsessive compulsive disorder became more pronounced, hampering her work.
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