Photo: In.gov
Mark Massa replaces Chief Justice Randall Shepard on the Indiana Supreme Court but will not necessarily be chief justice.
Indiana’s newest Supreme Court justice has been on the job for about a month, but he was publicly sworn in Monday.
In addition to his role as prosecutor on the state and federal level, Massa served under Mitch Daniels as the Governor’s general counsel. Some critics have said that close relationship is the reason Daniels appointed Massa to the Court. But the governor says he scrutinized Massa more heavily than other candidates.
“You fully justify this choice and I would have made it – and probably made it more quickly – if I had never met you before in my life,” he says.
Massa was appointed to replace Chief Justice Randall Shepard who retired in March. He says he is eager to embrace the challenges of replacing the justices who’ve come before him.
“It is a high standard that Randy Shepard, Frank Sullivan, Ted Boehm and their colleagues have set,” Massa says. “It is humbling and sobering that the responsibility has passed, in part, to me.”
The state’s Judicial Nomination Commission will announce its choice for the new chief justice next week.
