Justice Mark Massa Joins the Indiana Supreme Court
Governor Mitch Daniels named Mark Steven Massa as Indiana’s 107th Indiana Supreme Court Justice.
He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and maintained his residence there until his graduation from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism. Following graduation he worked as a newspaper reporter for the Evansville Press in Vanderburgh County from 1983 until 1985 when he moved to Indianapolis and joined the administration of Governor Robert Orr as a speechwriter and deputy press secretary. His first big assignment in his new job was to help write the Governor’s State of the State address. While working full-time in the Governor’s office he also attended law school at night obtaining his Doctor of Jurisprudence Degree in 1989 from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
In his speech at his Investiture Ceremony on May 7th, Justice Massa told a story on himself about feeling guilty for leaving the world of journalism for his new job in the political/government arena until receiving a note of congratulations from his boss at the Evansville Press. His former mentor wrote in the note that he should not feel bad as the world “didn’t need another ink-stained wretch in the news business, but, who knows? We could always use another Mitch Daniels.” Massa wrote back thanking his old boss for the blessing and absolution but added, “Who’s Mitch Daniels?” The man who appointed Mark Massa to the Indiana Supreme Court was working at the time for President Ronald Reagan. This was not the only time Mark Massa would work in the Governor’s office, and ironically his next job in that office almost twenty years later would be as General Counsel to Governor Mitch Daniels.
Following his work in the office of Governor Orr, and as a newly licensed lawyer, Massa worked as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for Marion County Prosecutors Steve Goldsmith and Jeff Modisett. He worked in the Prosecutor’s Office until Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard brought him on board as his law clerk. He worked for Justice Shepard for the next two years. He reviewed briefs, researched and wrote legal memoranda, attended oral arguments and assisted in drafting dozens of Court opinions. After he left the service of the Supreme Court he was an associate in the Law Office of Linda Pence, an Indianapolis trial attorney. In that capacity he represented white collar criminal defendants and worked on motions and discovery, and did research in complex civil RICO litigation as plaintiff’s counsel.
Massa then became the Policy and Communications Director of the Indiana Republican State Committee and remained there before serving as the Transition Director for Marion County Prosecutor-elect Scott Newman. Prosecutor Newman appointed Massa as Chief Counsel to the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office where he served from 1995 until 2002. He was the primary advisor to the Prosecutor on all matters relevant to his duties, while assisting in the management of an office of more than 120 lawyers and 200 support staff. He was in-house counsel on matters of employment law and other civil lawsuits and was lead trial counsel in cases involving murder, attempted murder, battery and other felonies, as well as several high profile prosecutions for capital murder. He also oversaw the office’s Grand Jury investigative unit and served as the Prosecutor’s liaison to the Indiana General Assembly.
He left the Prosecutor’s Office to become Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, working with United States Attorney Susan Brooks. He oversaw criminal investigations and directed federal agents, presented cases for indictment by grand jury, successfully tried criminal matters in the United States District Court, and defended verdicts on appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Massa was honored with the United States Department of Health and Human Services “Inspector General’s Integrity Award” in 2005 for his work prosecuting an important health care fraud case. He was also detailed to the Joint Terrorism Task Force post-9/11 and earned the requisite security clearance for that assignment.
He remained there for three years until Governor Mitch Daniels named him as his General Counsel. His duties in the Governor’s office included advising the Governor on judicial appointments, clemency, pardons, civil litigation in which the state was a party, personnel matters, employment law and ethics, the scope and limits of executive authority, separation of powers, constitutional and policy analysis of legislation and administrative rules, criminal justice policy and as liaison with the judicial branch. Massa served in that capacity from 2006 to 2010 when he left to seek election as the Marion County Prosecutor while serving in an Of Counsel position for the Indianapolis law firm of Riley, Bennett & Egloff. He served as Chairman of the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission for a brief time before being named as Executive Director of the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute in May 2011. Governor Daniels announced on March 23, 2012 that he had chosen Mark Massa as his appointment to replace his former mentor in whose chambers he had worked just two decades earlier as a law clerk—Chief Justice Shepard.
Justice Massa has had an active role in community affairs including serving on the board of directors of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Indianapolis and the Police Athletic League, and serving on the School Commission and as Chairman of the School Budget Committee at his local parish church, Immaculate Heart of Mary. He was also a coach for the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) for eight years.
He is the proud father of two children, daughter Kelsey and son Danny, both of whom attended Immaculate Heart of Mary grade school and Cathedral High School. His daughter is a senior at St. Louis University and is in their pre-law scholars program. She would like to be a prosecutor. His son graduated from high school in May and is now attending the University of Dayton.
Most of his leisure time is consumed by music and sports. He lectors and sings in church choirs and also occasionally fills in as an accompanist on piano. He competes in a weekly ice hockey league, plays golf and tennis, and bikes and swims on a regular basis. When he is not a participant he enjoys attending live sporting events and concerts. His reading preference away from the office is history and non-fiction works.
As to how Justice Massa views his role on the Indiana Supreme Court, we can find the answer in his Investiture speech:
“So what can we promise? A British journalist once went to see Mother Teresa of Calcutta to do a story on her mission in one of the worst slums on earth. Seeing the despair that surrounded, he asked her how she could ever hope to be successful. She took his hand and quietly said, ‘God doesn’t expect us to be successful, he expects us to be faithful.’ And so it is with this Court and my twenty percent role in it. I cannot promise you that I, or that we, will always be successful in finding the right outcome, but we will be faithful; faithful to the rule of law, faithful to the principles of equal justice, faithful to a promise of patient and civil treatment of lawyers and litigants, or as Socrates defined the judge’s charge, ‘to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.’
That is my promise to you today: to strive every day to meet Judge Barker’s challenge, courteously, wisely, soberly, impartially; not perfectly…but faithfully. I thank you all again for making this an unforgettable day for me and my entire family. God bless you all, and this Honorable Court.”
Justice Loretta Rush Takes Her Place on the Indiana Supreme Court
Governor Mitch Daniels named Tippecanoe Superior Court Judge Loretta Hogan Rush as Indiana’s 108th Indiana Supreme Court Justice.
Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as Loretta Hogan, she is the daughter of a railroad man who worked for the Erie-Lackawanna Railway. His job took the family to Chicago and eventually to Richmond, Indiana where she graduated from Richmond High School. Her next stop was Purdue University where she attended with the assistance of academic scholarships and by working to fund her education. Her jobs included washing dishes in dormitory cafeterias, driving school buses to their delivery sites, and computer input of data in research projects for the School of Family Studies. She was involved in many campus activities and a member of the Alpha Phi sorority. She maintained membership on the Deans’ List and was named a Distinguished Student. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1980 and was certified to teach Economics, Government, Sociology and History. She was a student teacher at Harrison High School in West Lafayette, but made a fateful and fortuitous decision to attend Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington, Indiana. Surprisingly, at the time she did not know, nor had ever met, a lawyer.
While in law school she continued her work-studies by teaching correspondence courses in business law to incarcerated prison inmates through the Indiana Department of Correction. She also worked as a summer law clerk for the Vinson and Elkins law firm of Houston, the Grey, Seifert, Inc. Wall Street investment firm, and the Locke Reynolds Boyd & Weisell Indianapolis law firm. During her law school studies she was a certified legal intern with Community Legal Services at Indiana University. In addition to her work and studies, she was Moot Court Champion and Best Oralist in 1982; a Sherman Minton Award Recipient; Indiana University Moot Court, National Team member; Order of the Barristers Recipient, Appellate Advocacy and Legal Writing, faculty selection; an American Jurisprudence Award winner; and, a member of the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity. She earned her Doctor of Jurisprudence degree and graduated Cum Laude in 1983.
Following her graduation from law school in 1983 until 1997, she was an associate and then partner in the Lafayette law firm of Dickson, Reiling, Teder and Withered, which became Reiling, Teder, Withered and Rush when Brent Dickson (now Chief Justice Brent Dickson) was named to the Indiana Supreme Court by Governor Robert D. Orr. As a general practice attorney for fifteen years, 80% of her legal practice consisted of civil litigation, including family law, business, personal injury, corporate, probate, worker’s compensation, and administrative law. She also served as West Lafayette Assistant City Attorney and as an attorney for the West Lafayette Economic Development Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals.
She was elected Tippecanoe Superior Court Judge in 1998, and re-elected in 2004 and 2010. During her fourteen years on the bench, her focus has been on cases involving Children in Need of Services (CHINS), delinquency, criminal and status offenses, paternity, dissolutions, guardianships, adoptions, and protective order hearings. Judge Rush was also selected by the Indiana Supreme Court to be one of three courts involved in a pilot project to explore the use of audio/visual records on appeal in lieu of written transcripts. She has committed to keeping this pilot project running without interruption after she assumed her new duties on the Indiana Supreme Court.
As a trial court judge, she has been involved in many activities outside of her courtroom. Judge Rush serves as the President of the Indiana Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and as Chair of the Juvenile Justice Improvement Committee, both positions from which she must resign as she assumes new responsibilities. She has collaborated with executive branch agencies and legislative committees in drafting significant legislation concerning child welfare, sentencing guidelines for children who are waived into the adult correction system, new juvenile “Waiver of Rights” form for use by law enforcement, and greater flexibility of courts in making placement decisions for children in need of services. Judge Rush also served on the Indiana Supreme Court Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC), chaired the first statewide Child Welfare Summit, and was selected by the Indiana Supreme Court to represent Indiana at every national judicial summit on children held in 2005, 2007, and 2009.
Judge Rush has worked with the Indiana Judicial Center to draft and revise the Juvenile Judge’s Benchbook for Delinquency, CHINS and Paternity; provide training materials for new judges on CHINS, Termination of Parental Rights, and Delinquency; and prepare annual reports as Chair of the Juvenile Justice Improvement Committee that were provided to all Indiana Judges at the Judges Annual Meeting. She was also a contributing author for White Papers on Understanding Juvenile Justice in Tippecanoe County and Understanding CHINS in Tippecanoe County.
Judge Rush has been involved in many pro bono activities in Tippecanoe County. While in private law practice, she served on the Volunteer Lawyer Panel; Diocese of Lafayette Marriage Tribunal volunteer legal services; and as a Guardian ad Litem. As Judge she developed a CHINS mediation program supported at no cost by certified attorney mediators to primarily indigent families involved in child welfare cases. She also has drafted and implemented pro se guidelines/pamphlets to help self-represented individuals navigate the court system. She received the YWCA “Salute to Women Award” and also the Judge Hand “Child Advocacy Award” in 2001; the Robert J. Kinsey Award as the Indiana “Juvenile Judge of the Year” in 2003; the Family Services Agency “Lillian Kaplan Award for Human Services” in 2005; the Greater Lafayette Baha’i Community “Human Rights Award” in 2006; and the Tippecanoe County Republican Women’s Club “Woman of the Year Award” in 2012.
Her involvement in community activities includes service on the YWCA Board of Directors; Chair of the Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program; Director of the Community and Family Resource Center Foundation Board; member of the Cary Children’s Home Board; service on the Tippecanoe County Community Corrections Board; weekly volunteer “Big Sister” with the Big Brothers/Sisters Program in the school-based program at Miller Elementary School; and she currently is the Grants Board Director of North Central Health Services (NCHS).
When Justice Frank Sullivan announced that he was resigning his position on the Indiana Supreme Court to become a Professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, colleagues and friends encouraged Judge Rush to submit her application for the vacancy. She admitted that she was hesitant at first for a number of reasons, but mainly because she “liked being a trial court judge.” In her usual thoughtful and deliberate manner, she did her research and sought out the advice and counsel of fellow jurists, lawyers, friends and family before deciding that this was something she wanted to do. Judge Rush has never shied away from a challenge and reports that she has “always liked the reading and research aspect of the law and has especially admired the collegiality of the Supreme Court Justices and the intellectual discourse that is such an important part of their work.” An additional reality that both energizes and humbles Judge Rush is that as a member of the Indiana Supreme Court “you are responsible for the rule of law in Indiana.”
Judge Rush is married to James Byron Rush, a Quality Assurance Engineer with MED Institute in West Lafayette, who is also a Purdue graduate. They have four children, two daughters, Mary Teresa and Sarah Hogan, and two sons, Jacob Ryan and Luke Abraham. They are an adventurous family who love to travel, from the Rocky Mountains to Niagara Falls to southern Missouri to Charlotte, North Carolina. According to Judge Rush they have been known to “hop in the car for a day trip just for the fun of it.”
Her first day on the job was November 7th and her public swearing-in ceremony will be on December 28th. As she looked forward to her new responsibilities on the Indiana Supreme Court, she expressed these thoughts: “I have a deep fundamental appreciation for the law and our courts. It is important to have an open, ethical, and well-informed judicial system. We must never take for granted the trust that our lawyers and the public have in our judiciary. I want to do well.”