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Judge Kouros saga gives new meaning to blind justice
Post-Tribune (IN)
June 18, 2004
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.proxy.portagelibrary.info/resources/doc/nb/news/103611A70F52A315?p=AWNB
It has been 3 1/2 years since the Indiana Supreme Court determined there was a substantial problem with Lake Superior Court Criminal Division Judge Joan Kouros' operation of her courtroom.
The Supreme Court's handling of the matter since January 2001 borders on criminal.
I suspect the high court has been too busy sticking it to Lake County on a number of crucial cases -- including Hospital Care for the Indigent -- to resolve the Kouros matter.
A glimpse at the Kouros saga makes it easy to understand why the general population regards the justice system with such low esteem.
Lake County Jail officials complained in late 2000 that too many people continued to sit in jail because Kouros had failed to file the release papers.
Although catching the Supreme Court's attention is about as trying as paper-training a puppy, the plea from the jail was heard.
The high court said it found a mess -- a massive case backlog.
The supremes told her to fix the problem, then disappeared for more than two years. Not only did things not get better, but they worsened over that period.
In May 2003, Kouros told the supremes that besides having multiple sclerosis, she also had an obsessive-compulsive disorder that became more pronounced because of the MS.
Can you imagine a defense attorney telling his client that although the judge has an obsessive-compulsive disorder, maybe we'll be lucky and catch her on a good day?
In June 2003 -- 30 months after the supremes told Kouros to clean up her court -- they determined things hadn't improved and suspended her.
While Kouros was off the bench, doing what was necessary to win back her job, the Indiana Judicial Qualifications Commission filed 78 disciplinary counts against Kouros in September 2003.
So what does the high court team of legal beagles do? You got it. They reinstated her in December 2003.
In March, just as the puppy was learning to piddle on the paper, the supremes decided they better start taking this Kouros matter seriously.
The court put its foot down and rejected a conditional agreement worked out between the Qualifications Commission and Kouros. That agreement would have allowed her to continue to make obsessive-compulsive decisions about people's lives on a daily basis.
Rather than remove her from the bench, the supremes named a three-member panel of judicial masters to hear the charges against Kouros.
There was a 10-hour hearing that resulted in a 48-page report that said, well, virtually nothing. There was no recommendation on Kouros' future.
Because the judicial masters are about as spineless as the Supreme Court, Kouros' fate now bounces back to the Qualifications Commission, which has 30 days to make a recommendation to the high court. Kind of makes you wonder why the court even brought the judicial masters into the ballgame. Buck-passing, perhaps.
After the Qualifications Commission makes a recommendation, then Kouros' lawyers have 30 days to make a response. Next thing you know, it will be Christmas and the supremes might finally decide what they found to be true in January 2001 is still true today -- Kouros shouldn't be a judge.
Wouldn't you just know this fiasco started in East Chicago? That's where Kouros' father, Gus, is a councilman and a lieutenant for political boss Tom Cappas, who convinced then-Gov. Evan Bayh to make Kouros a judge in 1997.
What a web politics can weave.
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