The Online Reflector

Gov. Mitch Daniels announced that University of Indianapolis Adjunct Faculty Member and Boone County Circuit Court Judge Steven David would be one of Indiana’s Supreme Court justices on Sept. 17. David replaced Justice Theodore R. Boehm, who retired Sept. 30.

David taught a course called Criminal Evidence in the spring of 2010, while filling in for Associate Professor and Director of the Criminal Justice Program Dennis Williams.

“I live in Lebanon, and I’m one of the public defenders of the county,” Williams said. “So I practice in his court, and he’s also the juvenile court judge for the county. So I asked him to take a class, if he’d be interested, because he’d mentioned it before.”

A circuit court judge for 16 years, David didn’t have much teaching experience before stepping into the classroom at UIndy, but his unique experiences and insight into criminal justice really resonated with some of the students.
“He was very active, involved, and always prepared,” junior Ian Duncan said. “I particularly liked his ethics lecture, when he told us lots of stories from his days in Guantanamo Bay.”

His interactive teaching style peaked the interest of other students as well.

“One day he brought in an interrogator, a lady from corrections, and they gave us tips and advice regarding criminal evidence,” junior Ashley Boxley said. “It made it a lot easier to learn.”

David’s diverse experience in law and criminal justice impressed more people than the governor.

“I had a lot of personal talks with Judge David, and he gave me a lot of great advice,” Duncan said. “I already had an interest in criminal justice. He just helped it along.”

David’s professional career includes more than a quarter of a century in the U.S. Army, where he rose in the ranks to colonel and completed at least one tour in Iraq, according to Williams. With experience in private practice and corporate business and having served as chief counsel for the Office of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, David’s appointment to justice was not surprising to Williams.

“They had three really strong candidates,” Williams said. “And there were 30 who originally applied. To go through the interview process and make the final three is an honor in and of itself. I just figured he had as good of a chance as the other two.”

How David will influence the court has yet to be seen, although Williams does not consider him to sway too far to the right or the left.

“He’s fairly conservative, but he also understands and sees the broader picture of how society changes,” Wiliams said. “Of course, the Supreme Court is the guardian of the state constitution, and I think he will be a strong proponent of constitutional rights. He has a keen awareness of what society needs, and he won’t be extreme in either direction.”

David had been asked to teach another class next semester. Williams figured that, with this news, David would be hard-pressed to find the time and energy, but that wasn’t the case.

“We had him scheduled to teach Juvenile Delinquency, and then he got appointed to the Supreme Court,” Williams said. “Well, I talked to him yesterday because I had some books for him, and he’s still going to do it. We’re going to have an associate justice of the Indiana Supreme Court teaching on this campus.”

This came as good news to Duncan.

“If he’s teaching another class next semester, I’d take it no matter what it is.”