Governor Mitch Daniels says he doesn’t have a set timeline for picking the next Indiana Supreme Court justice. Although, state law requires it be decided within 60 days of the finalists’ names being sent to him. That would be approximately October 9.
The finalists are Tippecanoe County Judge Loretta Rush, Hamilton County Judge Steven Nation and Indianapolis attorney Geoffrey Slaughter.
Daniels says all three have strong records and it will take time to interview them and deliberate before choosing.
"When it comes to something with long-term consequences, like picking judges, we don't want to rush to judgment. I feel very, very conscious of the need to get it right."
Daniels says he’s heard good things about each of the three finalists, but he plans to take time to choose wisely.
"If you look back at the choices we've had, a couple of them we made pretty quickly, a couple of them we used more time, just to gather more input, try to be as confident as we could that we made the right choice."
This likely will be Daniels final Supreme Court appointment before his term ends in January. He already appointed Steven David and Mark Massa to the court.
The next justice will replace Frank Sullivan, who retired at the end of July.