Evan Bayh: “I rise today with Senator Richard Lugar to introduce the Southern District of Indiana Temporary Judgeship Act. This…”

“I rise today with Senator Richard Lugar to introduce the Southern District of Indiana Temporary Judgeship Act. This legislation creates an additional temporary judgeship for the Southern District of Indiana to help ease the strain that has resulted from an extremely heavy caseload of civil and criminal litigation. The Southern District is in dire need of an additional judge. Last year, the District's caseload was much higher than the national average and greater than any other court in the Seventh Circuit. In fact, there were 599 filings per judge, a number almost twenty percent greater than the national average of 474. In addition to an increase in the number of criminal cases filed in recent years, the Federal Bureau of Prisons death row, located at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN, is in the Southern District and houses approximately twenty-one inmates currently under a federal sentence of death. Hence, the Southern District also must be able to manage the habeas corpus petitions that are typically filed by death row inmates. Further, our State capital of Indianapolis is located in this district, and as a growing urban center, is significantly contributing to the number and complexity of the cases before the Southern District. Federal and local law enforcement are aggressively prosecuting drug crimes, but if we expect them to succeed in making our communities safer, we must give them the tools they need.”