The Indiana Supreme Court will amend the Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct after judges, lawyers, and the public review a draft of the Rule.  In late 2007, a committee of the Judicial Conference of Indiana studied the 2007 American Bar Association Model Code of Judicial Conduct and drafted a similar Indiana Code.  The Committee’s draft is posted on the Supreme Court’s website, and the Court will consider all comments before it issues the 2009 Code of Judicial Conduct later this year.

The new Code emphasizes the “three i’s” of judicial conduct - independence, integrity, and impartiality - and continues to hold judges to strict standards of conduct in all their activities.  The Rule not only sets out clear rules of judicial conduct, which, if violated, subject judges to discipline by the Supreme Court, it also includes aspirational ethical principles intended as guidance for Indiana’s judges and judicial candidates.
 
Specifically, the new Code encourages judges to reach out to the public to promote understanding of the judicial system, specifies that a judge may take measures to ensure that unrepresented litigants have fair hearings, and assures judges that they properly may confer with unbiased colleagues about cases and issues.  Additionally, the new Rule imposes clear parameters for reimbursement of expenses to judges who attend private legal seminars, recognizes domestic partners as family members in its conflicts of interests rules, and requires judges to remove themselves from cases if they made campaign statements committing themselves to particular outcomes. The Ethics Committee’s proposed Indiana Rule incorporates these and many other aspects of the new Model; its most substantial changes to the Model Rules are about restrictions on judges’ business interests and the limits on judges’ political activities.

The Ethics Committee draft is at http://courts.in.gov/code along with various other documents relating to this project, including the current Indiana Code, the 2007 ABA Model, and a roster of Ethics Committee members.   The legal profession and the general public all are encouraged to submit their comments for consideration by the Supreme Court when it updates and revises Indiana’s Code of Judicial Conduct.