9-Years Later: Bernacchi's Case Still Warrants Another Look....

ERRORS IN INDIANA GO UNADDRESSED RUINING THE FABRIC OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION AND JUDICIAL SYSTEM

On the Eve of the 9th Anniversary of Indiana Supreme Courts wrong, illegal, and hideous ruling in In re Doug Bernacchi , New Questions Now Require that Indiana’s Supreme Court Revisit Teh 9-Old Disciplinary Case

INDIANAPOLIS — October 15, 2026 — Nine years since the Indiana Supreme Court issued the disciplinary order that ended Doug Bernacchi’s 27-year Indiana legal career, IT REMAINS A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE, A DENIAL DUE PROCESS AND GLIMPSE INTO THE EXCLUSIVE POWERS OF THE SCOIN TO EFFECTIVELY CANCEL PEOPLE THEY ATTACK.

Nine years is a long time to endure injustice and exile from one's home in Indiana, and chosen career as a lawyer. Every time the song "Back Home Again in Indiana" is heard Rush should cringe with embarrassment. She belongs back in PA, Scranton, to be exact. Not Indiana which even she admits gave her a position that she not have been qualified for anywhere esls. Surprise unless you act, Ms. Rush, you will be remembered as this state's worst Supreme Court Cheif Justice in the history of Indinia.

It has been long enough for laws and professional rules to evolve. Long enough for witnesses, records and previously disputed information to be viewed through a different lens. And it is certainly long enough for a court entrusted with correcting the errors of every other court in Indiana to ask whether it should ever reconsider one of its own.

That is the question now confronting Chief Justice Loretta Rush and the Indiana Supreme Court in In the Matter of Doug Bernacchi.

On October 16, 2017, the Court suspended Bernacchi for at least one year without automatic reinstatement. The Court found violations involving his representation of a client, his fee, his relationship with nonlawyer assistant Mario Sims and Bernacchi's conduct during the disciplinary investigation. Sim's recently published Affidavit blows up Rush's false narrative.

SEE https://www.hoosierenquirer.com/post/the-affidavit-that-shows-that-cj-rush-s-commission-staff-misled-her-on-the-facts-or-she-lied-here

Nearly nine years later, Bernacchi remains suspended with no hearing set on reinstatement. No deal like given to Attorney General Rokita, and no slap on the wrist like for Curtis Hill.

The Hoosier Enquirer believes the anniversary presents an appropriate moment for the Court to take another look at the case—not because criticism of a court proves that its decision was wrong, but because significant questions surrounding the case deserve answers.

The Paralegal Rule Deserves Another Look

Perhaps the most striking development concerns Mario Sims, one of Bernacchi's many providers of paralegal services. Bernacchi said to HE in the past: "The nice old guy worked only 2 percent of my client files," referring to Sims.

HE has confirmed also that Mario Sims worked for several other lawyers and even an Elkhart county superior court judge as a contract paralegal.

Bernacchi was selectively prosecuted, why? He was a good lawyer, smart, publicly involved and a great father of 4 children and a family man with a great reputation among his many client, and with no history of misconduct. Bernacchi even speaks Spanish fluently. HE is not sure Rush can even speak English, she has never responded to record requests for her travel records, which will likely show she has travel the country and World on OPM -- Other Peoples Money, not her own. She is a failed DEI woman imposter, seemingly incapable of justice to one and all.

Her court's finding(s) were upside down and defy logic as HE or "any reasonable person" sees it, and HE has and will continue to report on this case until Rush wakes up and fixes In Re Bernacchi, Sua Sponte. It his her duty.

The 2017 opinion relied in part upon what was then Indiana's prohibition against an independent nonlawyer assistant. The rule cited against Bernacchi provided that independent nonlawyer assistants—those who were not employed by a particular lawyer or firm—were prohibited.

Bernacchi has always maintained that Sims was exactly what he appeared to be: an outside contract paralegal who occasionally performed research and other work for his law practice.

Indiana's rules today look very different. The conduct for which Bernacchi did which was called unehtical is today expressly "ethical." Yet, Bernacchi remains cancelled since October 16, 2017. Why? This is not justice; Rush has allowed injustice to destroy the fabric of this state and she needs to pay or act, or both.

Current Professional Conduct Rule 5.3 addresses a nonlawyer “employed or retained by or associated with a lawyer.” Even more significantly, the official commentary expressly recognizes assistants who are “employees or independent contractors.”

That does not retroactively erase every finding in the 2017 Bernacchi opinion. The Court found other violations, and the prohibition against sharing legal fees with nonlawyers remains.

But the change creates an obvious question.

If an independent-contractor paralegal relationship is expressly contemplated by Indiana's ethical rules today, should the Indiana Supreme Court examine what role the former prohibition played in a disciplinary proceeding that ultimately destroyed a lawyer's career?

That question becomes more important because Bernacchi disputes that he ever shared a legal fee with Sims. He has maintained that the disputed client never paid the supposed fee that the Court said was improperly divided.

Nine years later, those assertions deserve examination against the underlying financial records rather than another round of rhetoric from either side.

The Witness Who Never Testified

There is another uncomfortable fact.

Mario Sims—the man whose relationship with Bernacchi became an important component of the disciplinary case—did not testify at Bernacchi's disciplinary hearing.

Bernacchi has repeatedly argued that Sims should have been permitted to explain his relationship with the law office, what work he actually performed, how frequently he performed it and whether any legal fee was ever shared with him.

That testimony potentially mattered.

A disciplinary system devoted to determining what actually happened should ordinarily want to hear from a central witness rather than merely hear about him.

Bernacchi's criticism is therefore capable of being tested. Obtain Sims' testimony. Examine the records. Compare what he says with the evidence introduced in 2017.

If the original findings withstand that examination, say so.

If they do not, correct them.

What Happened Inside the Disciplinary Commission?

There is a still more serious issue that requires considerably greater care.

The attorneys representing the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission in Bernacchi's case included then-Executive Director G. Michael Witte and staff attorney Aaron Johnson. Their participation is not speculation; their names appear on the Supreme Court's 2017 opinion.

Bernacchi has subsequently made serious allegations concerning how the investigation and prosecution were conducted. He contends that witnesses were pressured, unreliable statements were accepted, exculpatory evidence was ignored and investigative techniques were employed to produce admissions rather than objectively determine what happened.

Those are allegations. They should not be converted into established facts merely because Bernacchi makes them.

But neither should they be ignored merely because the people accused of misconduct worked for the institution responsible for regulating lawyers.

That is precisely why independent review matters.

If Bernacchi possesses affidavits, recordings, correspondence, disciplinary investigative materials or other evidence supporting his accusations concerning Johnson, Witte or witnesses in the proceeding, the appropriate response is simple: examine it.

HE has seen the evidence, but the court rigged justice in his case.

If it demonstrates material irregularities, the Court should confront them. The integrity of attorney discipline requires fixing errors and admitting there was a time when the most unethical lawyers in the state enforced ethics law here.

Nine Years for a One-Year Minimum Suspension

There is also a basic fact that cannot be escaped. The Court's Docket show a motion to reinstate wasl file 7 years ago, and yet, there is no hearing(s) set, or held?

The Supreme Court imposed a suspension of at least one year without automatic reinstatement. That phrase matters. Bernacchi was not entitled to have his license automatically restored after twelve months. Indiana's reinstatement procedure places additional requirements on a suspended attorney.

But nine years is not one year.

By tomorrow, nearly a decade will have passed since the order.

The question therefore extends beyond whether every sentence of the 2017 opinion was correct. Indiana should ask whether its attorney-disciplinary structure provides an adequate mechanism for revisiting a case when substantial new information, changed professional rules or credible challenges to the integrity of the original proceeding subsequently emerge.

Chief Justice Rush Has Never Demostrated an Understanding of Her Responsibility to the Institution, and for that she should go!

This should not be reduced to a personality contest between Bernacchi and Loretta Rush.

Rush was Chief Justice when the order was entered. She remains Chief Justice today. The Indiana Constitution gives the Supreme Court authority over attorney discipline, and the Chief Justice occupies the central administrative position within Indiana's judicial branch.

The issue is institutional accountability.

Courts routinely expect trial judges to reconsider decisions when circumstances justify reconsideration. Appellate courts reverse lower courts. Convictions can be challenged when new evidence emerges. Judgments can sometimes be reopened when fraud or extraordinary circumstances are demonstrated.

The judiciary's legitimacy therefore cannot depend upon the proposition that its own disciplinary decisions are somehow incapable of deserving a second examination.

The Hoosier Enquirer believes the Court should determine whether it has authority to initiate such a review on its own motion—or otherwise provide an appropriate procedural vehicle for an independent examination of the Bernacchi matter.

That review should not begin with the assumption that Bernacchi is right.

It should not begin with the assumption that Rush or the Commission was right, either.

Start with the evidence.

Open the File

Nine years ago tomorrow, five Indiana Supreme Court justices put the authority of the State of Indiana behind an order that fundamentally changed one lawyer's life.

The consequences did not last one year.

They have lasted nine.

Much has happened since October 16, 2017. Indiana's treatment of independent nonlawyer assistants has changed. Additional information has been asserted concerning Sims and the underlying events. Bernacchi has raised specific accusations about the conduct of the disciplinary investigation and the Commission attorneys who prosecuted him.

Some of those assertions remain disputed. Some may ultimately prove irrelevant. Others could matter enormously.

There is only one responsible way to determine which is which.

Open the file. Examine the evidence. Let Sims speak. Review the financial records. Investigate the allegations concerning the disciplinary process. Compare the standards applied in 2017 with Indiana's rules today. Then explain the result publicly.

Nine years later, Indiana does not need another declaration that its Supreme Court cannot make mistakes. It needs a judicial system confident enough and smart, willing to find out whether it erred.