Go pound sand: Indiana Supreme Court rules against Team Gahan v.v. the frivolous City County Building lawsuit.

The link: City of New Albany v. Board of Commissioners of the County of Floyd

Let's begin with excellent words suitable for you-know-who.

Pounding sand, Shane?

There are two takes on go pound sand. The more recent, seemingly a product of World War II, and often euphemised, is go pound sand up one's (rear end). It is used to dismiss and deride, and is ultimately a vehement way of saying: "go away"...A variant meaning is to suffer or to act in a pointless manner ... the late 19th century phrase "pound sand in a rathole" originated on campus and meant to be reasonably intelligent. It was usually found in the negative phrase, "not enough sense to pound sand in a rat hole."

Pounding sand used to be a good thing -- a sensible task undertaken by a person wise in the ways of rodent control -- until it became a bad thing -- a painful act of self-abasement -- and then morphed into a simple act of futility.

I'm obviously not an attorney, and the joy I'm deriving from this court decision derives from the stinging rebuke to Gahanism.

The lease expired in September 2008, and thereafter, the City and the County continued to occupy the Center, splitting the costs proportionally, based on the amount of space each occupied. In 2015, the County began negotiations with Building Authority for renovations of the Center. In 2018, the County requested that the Building Authority transfer title of the Center to the County pursuant to the Turn-Over Provision in the parties’ lease.

The Building Authority declined to transfer title and the County filed suit in April of 2018, seeking declaratory judgment and specific performance, among other things. At the county’s request, the trial court expedited the proceedings. In May 2018, the trial court granted the City of New Albany’s request to intervene. In June 2018, the trial court entered declaratory judgment in favor of the County, concluding that the Turn-Over Provision in the lease was valid pursuant to Indiana Code section 36-9-13-22(a)(6). It ordered that the title be given to the County and dismissed all other pending claims.

The City appealed arguing that under Indiana Code section 36-9-13, the Turn-Over Provision was not valid. The Court of Appeals agreed and Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 19S-MI-674 | March 23, 2020 Page 4 of 7 further held, sua sponte, that the County, as a holdover tenant could still exercise the purchase option in the lease. City of New Albany v. Bd. of Comm’rs of Cty. of Floyd, 125 N.E.3d 636, 641 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), adhered to on reh'g, 130 N.E.3d 660 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), and trans. granted, opinion vacated, 138 N.E.3d 961 (Ind. 2019). Both parties petitioned for transfer, which we granted. Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).

In short, the Indiana Supreme Court found in favor of the original trial court ruling, and all you really need to know is the defeat constitutes egg on Dear Leader's face.

Actually it isn't the only thing.

How much did this frivolous lawsuit cost city and county? Anyone for an on-line petition demanding the mayor pay court costs?

On Gahan's $10,000,000 City-County Building escape plan as a tactic to disrupt his ancestral enemies in county government.

The national media discovers SoIn: "3 Indiana Judges Suspended After White Castle Brawl That Left 2 Of Them Wounded."

Social media debates on this topic began shortly after the incident in May, then subsided, only to explode into the stratosphere when the story finally went national.

Opinion seems divided into two distinct strands of thought. The first, advocated by those who know the three judges personally, is that everyone deserves another chance. The other, expressed by the Indiana Supreme Court, upholds the existence of a higher bar (pun unintended) for those donning judicial robes.

The cynical way to look at it would be to shrug; all other institutions have become degraded in the last quarter-century, and nowadays nationwide there are more barely qualified judges than flavors of hard seltzer.

Who cares if they drink and carouse? Haven't we all?

Perhaps a less hopeless take is to assert that without a rediscovery of useful core ethics to guide the judiciary, their verdicts are rendered into nonsense.

I'm reminded of the late father of a close friend, who was a banker at a time when banking was local and not a by-product of neoliberal self-immolation. In short, my friend's dad was a banker 24 hours a day, not merely eight. He dressed, thought and lived the job, because if a banker behaved like a rock star out in public, it reduced confidence in the institution guarding one's savings.

I realize the relationship between a banker and his community was more complicated than this, even then. It doesn't change the fact that my friend's father recognized a responsibility, and knew his personal honor was at stake.

Southern Indiana currently is a laughingstock owing to the tale of the strip-club-seeking drunken judges and their ill-advised journey to White Castle. Fortunately for everyone involved, no one died and the ignominy will be short-lived in a nation with the collective attention span of a moth.

Is a suspension and some form of penance enough punishment for these judges? I've no idea.

If their own case came before them, how would they decide it?   

3 Indiana Judges Suspended After White Castle Brawl That Left 2 Of Them Wounded, by Laurel Wamsley (NPR)

Back in May, three Indiana judges got into a fight. It was the crescendo of an incident brimming with colorful details: a gaggle of judges drinking the night before a judicial conference, a failed attempt to visit a strip club called the Red Garter, a brawl in the parking lot of an Indianapolis White Castle ...

Guffaws greet Keith Henderson for Circuit Court Judge: "Reprimand recommended against Floyd County Prosecutor ... over actions in David Camm case."

Photo from WLKY.

Keith Henderson has been our Floyd County prosecutor since the beginning of time (or around 2002), and currently is attempting to outpace the ethical morass of his own making by running for Floyd County Circuit Judge against another longtime occupant, Judge Terry Cody.

Because in a hotly contested campaign for circuit court judge, no publicity is BAD publicity, right?

But it gets even funnier, because Democratic Party conniver-in-chief Adam Dickey has penned a by-the-same-tired-partisan-numbers press release quoting himself (shock and awe) in recommending Henderson's withdrawal from the November ballot.

“It’s time we elected people of high morals that can help rebuild the trust citizens have lost in their government. Mr. Henderson is not that person.”

For that matter, neither is Dickey's Frankenstein monster of a political money vacuum creation, Jeff Gahan -- but yes, Gahan was voted back into office fair and square, and by the same standard, Henderson should be allowed to be rejected at the polls ... or not.

Perhaps that's what worries Adam so much.

Reprimand recommended against Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson over actions in David Camm case, by Travis Kircher (WDRB)

The hearing officer of the Indiana Disciplinary Commission has recommended that the Indiana Supreme Court issue a public reprimand against Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson over his actions in the David Camm case.

The recommendation came down on Wednesday, Aug. 3.

Specifically, the recommendation found that Henderson's pursuit of a deal to write a book about the case between Camm's second and third trials violated an ethics rule prohibiting attorneys from negotiating publicity rights arising from representation of their clients.

Get it right, or let him go.

David Camm's murder verdict was overturned today, and there will be a third murder trial.

Read the Indiana Supreme Court opinion.

I find it regrettable that so many opinions about this decision will be proffered within the parameters of what a third trial will cost.

Yes, it will be an awful lot.

Yes, I'd rather spend the money on other things.

Yes, it's frustrating.

But that isn't really the point of justice, is it? Even the most cursory consideration of American history should lead most fair-minded people to concur with this assessment, as written at another local blog:

How many times do we have to convict this guy? The answer is, one time - fairly.

Conversely, if the evidence is valid or admissable, acquit him and be done with it. Either way, do it fairly.

It's always fashionable to bash lawyers and decry the expense of justice in cases like this. There are valid reasons for both these points of view, and I'm not the one to outline the case for how the situation might be improved, although from where I'm sitting, two successive prosecutions have been botched. Where's the rage against the lawyers responsible for the mishandlings, and hence the reversals?

There should be a large element of conscience to all this. Who among us is willing to dispense with the sort of legal safeguards against abuses and errors that were exercised today by the Indiana Supreme Court's ruling? Things like this prove the viability of the legal syystem. At the same time, calculations of justice in the context of Steve Price's nickels and dimes proves just how shallow we can be at times.

Get it right, or let him go.

But feel free to disagree.

Local attorney Beardsley argues Indiana Supreme Court case.

Kudos to Stephen Beardsley – attorney, gadfly and downtown New Albany advocate:

Justices examine translator case; Court considers providing interpreter for all non-English-speaking defendants, by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener (short shelf life for some Courier-Journal links).

Attorney Stephen Beardsley of New Albany argued yesterday that the court should pay for translators to help all non-English-speaking defendants, regardless of their income.

"An interpreter -- so key to fundamental due process -- is part of the basic apparatus of the courtroom in the same way that a court stenographer, as a bailiff, indeed as a judge is," he said.