Judicial candidates aim for quick start in new court

Two judicial candidates want to do what hasn't been done in 20 years: take the bench in a brand new courtroom in Tippecanoe County.

Newest court.

News 18's joe paul spoke with (jackie) jacque chosnek and dan moore about their campaigns.

And how they plan to head one of the county's busiest courts.

Two judicial candidates want to do what hasn't been done in 20 years: to take the bench in a brand new courtroom in tippecanoe county.

"so it's going to be important that, from the start, we get the right procedures and policies in place to be able to effectively and effeciently handle the high volume of cases that will come through the court."

Democrat jacque chosnek says the new superior court seven needs to get off the ground quickly.

Republican dan moore says that he anticipates a backlog of cases from the get- go.

"obviously with covid-19, there's going to be further complications in that there are things we're going to be behind on, like evictions and potentially jury trials that were delayed for several months during the shutdown."

Superior seven is designed to take pressure off of other courtrooms struggling to keep up with their caseloads.

The court will handle the majority of eviction cases.

Which have been on the rise due to economic fallout from the pandemic.

"right now, the united way and other community organizations have banded together to ease the ability to get rent relief services, and so a judge has to be aware of what those resources are in the community."

Chosnek agrees that connecting people to services is the best way a judge can address the issue.

"i would hope that we would be able to make available and make all the parties, both landlords and tenants, aware of the different cmunity programs and optoins that are out there to try to help resolve the issues and the increase of potential evictions because of the pandemic."

Joe paul, news 18.

Chosnek is a deputy city attorney for the city of lafayette.

Moore is a magistrate in the county's magistrate court.

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