Your aren't suppose to know: Indiana's Supreme Court Has a Transparency Problem. Under Chief Justice Rush, Financial Disclosure Exceptions Leave the Public in the Dark

Lorreta Rush will go down as the worst Chief Justice in Indiana history and will have hurt women in the law for decades.

Indiana's highest court requires citizens and lawyers to obey its rules while allowing judges to receive a lot of outside-funded benefits without reporting them on annual financial disclosures.

The exemptions predate Chief Justice Loretta Rush, but their continuation and expansion under her leadership raise fundamental questions about her lack of leadership, failure to restore trust, her own judicial independence, accountability and the possibility of concealed conflicts of interest, and crimes.

HOOSIER ENQUIRER | INVESTIGATIVE EDITORIAL

INDIANAPOLIS — In a state where judges possess extraordinary authority over the liberty, property and livelihoods of ordinary citizens, the Indiana Supreme Court has maintained a financial disclosure system that leaves significant categories of benefits received by judges outside routine public reporting.

The arrangement, established before Chief Justice Loretta Rush joined the Court and continued during her more than twelve years as its leader, presents a troubling contradiction: The institution entrusted with enforcing judicial ethics also writes the rules determining which financial relationships its own judges must reveal.

At the center of the controversy is Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 3.14, which permits judges to accept reimbursement for reasonable expenses associated with educational and other permitted activities. Rule 3.15 generally requires reporting of certain outside compensation, gifts and reimbursements, but the rules exempt qualifying payments from designated organizations. Those organizations include government entities, universities, bar associations and national judicial organizations, among others approved by the Supreme Court.

The distinction may appear technical, even innocuous. Judges attend conferences, participate in continuing education and consult with professional organizations. These activities are generally legitimate and often beneficial. Yet the financial arrangements supporting them can be relevant to judicial impartiality, particularly when organizations have relationships with lawyers, businesses or interest groups whose concerns intersect with matters before the courts.

The question is not whether judges should receive educational reimbursements. It is whether citizens should be permitted to know who pays for them.

Under Indiana's existing framework, a judge may receive qualifying transportation, lodging, meals and registration benefits without identifying those reimbursements on an annual Statement of Economic Interests. The fact that a payment is exempt from disclosure does not establish impropriety, but neither does its exemption establish that the underlying financial relationship is irrelevant. A public disclosure system that excludes entire categories of financial benefits cannot provide a complete picture of the relationships that may warrant examination.

For a judiciary whose legitimacy depends on public confidence in impartial decision-making, that is a consequential weakness.

The Rules Were Written Before Rush. The System Continued Under Her Leadership

Indiana's current judicial conduct framework took effect on January 1, 2009, several years before Rush joined the Supreme Court in 2012 and became chief justice in August 2014. It would therefore be inaccurate to attribute the original creation of these exemptions to her administration. The more pertinent question is what the Court has done with the system during her leadership and whether the public has received stronger protections against undisclosed financial conflicts.

One particularly revealing decision occurred on January 10, 2020, when the Indiana Supreme Court expanded its list of organizations eligible for exempt reimbursement treatment. The Court added the Indiana Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, describing them as impartial legal organizations supporting judicial education. The exemption encompassed qualifying expenses for judges and, in specified circumstances, their spouses or guests.

There is no established evidence that either organization engaged in wrongdoing, and the educational purposes cited by the Court are legitimate. But the decision nevertheless illustrates the direction of the Court's policy: Rather than requiring comprehensive reporting of outside-funded benefits while preserving judges' ability to participate in professional education, the Court extended the circumstances in which such benefits need not appear in annual disclosures.

That distinction matters. Disclosure does not prevent a judge from attending a conference, accepting reimbursement for a hotel room or participating in a seminar. It simply provides a public record of the benefit, allowing citizens to evaluate its source and circumstances. The Supreme Court's decision to preserve and expand exceptions therefore reflects a policy choice, not an unavoidable consequence of judicial education.

Under Rush's leadership, Indiana's judiciary has modernized electronic filing, case administration and access to court information. Those improvements are meaningful. But making it easier to file a lawsuit or retrieve a court order is not the same as making judicial financial relationships transparent. A modern court system can still maintain disclosure rules that leave the public with unanswered questions about who provides financial benefits to its judges.

How Influence Can Remain Invisible

Corruption in government is often imagined as an envelope of cash exchanged for an official favor. That image is familiar, but improper influence can be more complicated. Financial relationships may develop through professional organizations, recurring invitations, paid travel, institutional affiliations and opportunities that provide access to officials whose decisions carry enormous consequences.

Judicial conferences are not inherently suspect. They can expose judges to valuable research, competing legal arguments and improvements in court administration. But when the funding of those activities is not fully disclosed, it becomes more difficult for the public to evaluate whether an organization providing benefits has interests that might reasonably raise questions about impartiality.

Consider a hypothetical educational organization that receives substantial support from corporations, law firms or advocacy groups interested in particular legal outcomes. It sponsors conferences attended by judges, pays qualifying expenses and develops continuing relationships with members of the judiciary. If the organization falls within an exempt category, the judge's annual financial statement may contain no record of those reimbursements. A litigant seeking to determine whether relevant relationships exist might have to reconstruct them through conference programs, organizational records and other sources, assuming those records are available at all.

None of these circumstances necessarily constitutes misconduct. Indeed, many such relationships may be entirely proper. The difficulty is that a disclosure system should enable independent examination of potential conflicts rather than require the public to accept the judgment of the person receiving the benefit.

Indiana's own judicial rules acknowledge the importance of the issue. The commentary to Rule 3.14 instructs judges to consider funding sources, the interests of sponsors and whether accepting reimbursement could undermine public confidence in judicial impartiality. If those considerations are sufficiently important to guide judicial behavior, they are also sufficiently important to justify meaningful public disclosure.

The concern is especially significant because Indiana Judicial Conduct Rule 2.11 requires judges to disqualify themselves when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. A litigant cannot effectively evaluate a possible conflict without access to the information that might reveal it. The obligation to recuse remains in force regardless of the reimbursement exemption, but the public's ability to assess compliance is necessarily limited when relevant financial relationships are not routinely disclosed.

In this way, a rule intended to accommodate legitimate professional education can also create an opportunity for improper relationships to escape ordinary scrutiny. That is a structural vulnerability, not proof that any particular Indiana judge has exploited it.

The Court's Financial Disclosures Show Why Transparency Matters

The value of disclosure becomes apparent when examining information Indiana's justices have actually reported. In February 2026, The Indiana Lawyer reviewed annual economic-interest statements covering 2025 and described financial relationships involving members of the Supreme Court.

Rush reported stock holdings in Eli Lilly and Honeywell. Justice Geoffrey Slaughter disclosed more than $4,000 in conference reimbursements involving the Federalist Society and Liberty Fund. Justice Mark Massa reported $10,000 in compensation for service on the Indianapolis Indians board, along with basketball-related gifts. Justice Christopher Goff reported compensation associated with teaching and legal writing.

These reported interests are not evidence of corruption.

Their disclosure instead demonstrates how transparency is supposed to work. Citizens can identify the organizations involved, examine the nature of the relationships and decide whether additional questions are warranted. Public reporting protects judges as well as litigants by replacing speculation with information.

The difficulty lies in what the statements may omit. If qualifying educational reimbursements from designated organizations need not be reported, the public cannot determine the complete value of outside-funded benefits merely by reviewing the annual filings. Nor can it reliably identify every organization that paid for a judge's travel or accommodations.

This is particularly important when examining relationships between judicial officers and organizations that advocate changes to the law, provide professional networking opportunities or maintain close connections with the legal profession. Such relationships are not inherently improper. But when financial benefits are involved, transparency provides a safeguard against both actual conflicts and the appearance of favoritism.

The Indiana Supreme Court has chosen to make certain categories of those benefits less visible in the ordinary reporting process. Whether additional records exist elsewhere does not eliminate the weakness in the annual disclosure system.

An Institution That Regulates Itself

Indiana's Supreme Court occupies a powerful position within state government. It interprets the law, establishes procedural and judicial conduct rules, supervises important aspects of the judicial branch and exercises authority over attorney discipline. Its decisions can determine the outcome of disputes involving constitutional rights, professional licenses, family relationships and substantial financial interests.

The concentration of authority is not itself evidence of misconduct. Courts require independence from the political branches, and judicial self-governance serves important constitutional purposes. Yet independence becomes harder to distinguish from institutional insulation when the same body responsible for enforcing ethical standards also determines significant exceptions to those standards.

Under Rush, the Supreme Court has continued exercising that authority while presiding over a judicial system in which citizens have limited opportunities to examine certain financial relationships. The Court's administrative responsibilities extend well beyond the courtroom, including oversight of judicial conduct processes and institutions that influence the professional lives of Indiana judges and lawyers.

That arrangement places an unusually high premium on voluntary transparency. The public cannot vote individual Supreme Court justices out of office in ordinary contested judicial elections, although Indiana voters can decide whether to retain them. Nor can citizens readily compel the Court to adopt more comprehensive financial reporting rules. Meaningful accountability therefore depends substantially on the judiciary's willingness to disclose information beyond what its existing rules minimally require.

Rush's leadership should be evaluated in that context. She inherited the reimbursement framework, but she has also presided over its continuation and the 2020 expansion of exempt organizations. It is reasonable to ask whether her administration has adequately considered the public interest in comprehensive disclosure, particularly as concerns about institutional accountability have grown.

A judiciary cannot expect the public to treat its own declarations of integrity as a substitute for independently verifiable information. The question is not whether Rush or her colleagues personally believe the existing safeguards are sufficient. It is whether those safeguards allow citizens to evaluate judicial financial relationships without relying almost entirely on assurances from the institution being examined.

When the Rules Themselves Become the Obstacle

The most troubling feature of Indiana's reimbursement exemptions is that they can prevent the ordinary disclosure process from revealing financial relationships even when everyone involved follows the rules.

A judge who properly accepts an exempt reimbursement and omits it from an annual statement has not necessarily concealed a legally reportable payment. The omission may be exactly what the rules permit. Yet the public receives less information than it would under a system requiring all outside-funded benefits to be disclosed.

That is how institutional opacity can become normalized. The absence of a disclosure entry may be mistaken for the absence of a financial relationship, when the actual explanation is that the relationship falls within an exemption.

A system designed this way may make it harder to discover improper influence if it occurs. The public cannot assess the aggregate value of exempt benefits, compare them across judges or identify patterns involving recurring sponsors simply by examining annual financial statements. An investigative reporter, litigant or citizen seeking a more complete account must pursue information through other channels, some of which may provide incomplete results.

There is an important difference between a rule that permits legitimate reimbursement and a rule that permits the reimbursement to remain outside ordinary public reporting. Indiana could preserve the first without retaining the second.

The Supreme Court has not established, merely by maintaining an exemption list, that every potential conflict involving an exempt organization can be identified and addressed. Publishing the names of organizations eligible for exemption is useful, but it does not reveal how much any particular judge received, how frequently benefits were provided or whether an organization's funding relationships warrant closer examination.

A list of organizations is not an accounting of payments.

What Genuine Judicial Transparency Would Require

Indiana should require judges to report the source, approximate value, date and purpose of outside-funded travel, lodging, meals and educational benefits, regardless of whether the sponsoring organization belongs to a previously exempt category. The requirement should apply consistently throughout the judiciary, including to the justices of the Supreme Court.

The Court should also establish a searchable public database of judicial financial disclosures, amendments and reimbursements, with reasonable safeguards for personal privacy and security. Where another entity directly finances a judge's participation through an intermediary organization, the disclosure framework should address that relationship when the information is known or reasonably obtainable.

An independent review process could examine reporting compliance and potential conflicts without interfering with judicial decision-making. Such oversight would not require the political branches to dictate case outcomes or undermine constitutional judicial independence. It would instead provide greater assurance that ethical standards are applied consistently and that relevant financial information is available to the public.

The Indiana General Assembly also has a legitimate role in reviewing statutory financial disclosure requirements and considering reforms consistent with the judiciary's constitutional authority. Neither branch should regard transparency as a threat to institutional independence.

The strongest argument for these changes is also the simplest: Legitimate judicial education and comprehensive public reporting are entirely compatible. A judge who receives appropriate reimbursement should be able to disclose it without embarrassment or fear. An organization that finances worthwhile educational programming should likewise have no objection to its sponsorship being accurately identified.

The purpose is not to discourage judges from learning. It is to ensure that the public can distinguish legitimate educational support from financial relationships that deserve closer scrutiny.

The Questions Chief Justice Rush Should Answer

After more than a decade leading Indiana's judiciary, Rush should be able to explain why the Court continues to exempt substantial categories of educational reimbursement from annual reporting. The public should know how many organizations currently qualify for exempt status, what standards govern their approval and whether the judiciary maintains records showing the total value of reimbursements received by individual judges.

The Court should also explain how it evaluates the funding sources behind exempt organizations and what procedures protect litigants when financial relationships might raise recusal concerns. If judges receive benefits from organizations with professional or institutional interests involving the judiciary, citizens should be able to determine whether those relationships are relevant to proceedings before the courts.

These are questions about public policy and institutional safeguards, not allegations that Rush or any particular justice has accepted a bribe or violated the law. The distinction is essential. Criticism of an opaque system is justified by the system's limitations; accusations of individual corruption require evidence of individual wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, the absence of established misconduct is not a sufficient defense of incomplete transparency. Financial disclosure rules are intended to help prevent improper influence and make potential conflicts discoverable before they become scandals. Waiting for proof of corruption before strengthening those rules misunderstands their purpose.

Rush has had substantial opportunity to advance reforms. The 2020 expansion demonstrates that the Court can modify its treatment of reimbursements when it chooses. It is therefore reasonable to ask why the Court has not pursued a comparable expansion of public reporting obligations.

The Public Should Not Have to Guess

The integrity of Indiana's judiciary cannot rest exclusively on the personal character of its judges, however conscientious individual members may be. Constitutional government depends on institutions whose rules protect the public even when officials make mistakes, exercise poor judgment or encounter improper influences.

Financial disclosure is one of those protections. It does not guarantee honesty, but it makes undisclosed relationships harder to maintain and allows the public to evaluate circumstances that might otherwise remain hidden.

Indiana's Supreme Court has maintained a system in which certain benefits received by judges are excluded from routine annual reporting. That system predates Rush, but it has continued during her leadership and was expanded in 2020. The result is a judicial disclosure framework that does not necessarily provide a complete account of outside-funded benefits.

For a court that exercises final authority over so many consequential questions, that limitation should be unacceptable as a permanent feature of judicial governance.

The burden should not fall on ordinary citizens to reconstruct financial relationships from scattered conference records, organizational publications and incomplete disclosures. Nor should litigants be expected to establish that an undisclosed relationship exists before they can ask whether it might compromise impartiality.

A Supreme Court committed to public confidence should welcome the opportunity to make legitimate financial relationships visible. Such transparency would protect honorable judges, discourage improper influence and strengthen the credibility of judicial decisions.

Chief Justice Rush and her colleagues have the authority to address this weakness. What remains to be seen is whether they will use that authority to make the judiciary more accountable or continue a disclosure system that leaves important financial information beyond ordinary public examination.

Indiana's judges should not merely ask citizens to trust that justice is impartial. They should provide the transparency necessary for citizens to examine that claim for themselves.

Sources and reference materials: Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct, Rules 2.11, 3.14 and 3.15; Indiana Supreme Court Order No. 94S00-1004-MS-200; Indiana Supreme Court Order No. 20S-MS-7 (January 10, 2020); Indiana Office of Judicial Administration, Statements of Economic Interests and exempt reimbursement sources; The Indiana Lawyer, February 2026 reporting on Indiana Supreme Court justices' annual economic-interest disclosures.

Editorial clarification: The financial disclosure exceptions discussed here do not establish that Chief Justice Rush or any other Indiana judge has engaged in corruption, accepted an improper payment or violated judicial ethics rules. The criticism concerns the transparency and oversight of the system itself.