REPRIMANDING THE AG

On this second day of November 2023 the SCOTSI handed a public reprimand to Attorney General Theodore (Todd) Rokita for intemperate and untrue extrajudicial statements made by him while trying to soak up publicity as a hero to the anti-choice crowd in the days following the 2022 SCOTUS reversal of Roe v. Wade.

While Ohio had an anti-choice statute effective immediately upon the Roe v. Wade reversal, Indiana did not. An unnamed Ohio girl of 10 years of age was pregnant by way of rape. She came to Indiana for an abortion around July 1, 2022.

Indiana AG Rokita was enraged at the Indiana doctor who provided the abortion service. While the doctor duly submitted the required reports to the IDOH and IDCS, the AG threatened her for not reporting. Notably, Rokita agreed that his statements violated Professional Conduct Rules 3.6(a) and 4.4(a). The Disciplinary Commission in turn agreed to dismiss a companion charge and recommended the remedy of a public reprimand (with no suspension of the law license).

While some would say that Rokita’s comments should be protected by the First Amendment, the CLB has noted how lawyers have less First Amendment protection than the average citizen enjoys. Moreover, Rokita’s statements about the Indiana doctor were in the context of administrative charges filed, threatened, or promised by the AG.

To me, your blogger, it was an embarrassment to see my AG groveling for anti-choice publicity without any discernible restraint or badge of dignity. The CLB joins the SCOTSI in declaring as shameful the behavior of Todd Rokita and suggesting his ethical and moral unfitness to hold a license to practice law and to occupy the high office of the AG.

In its Per Curiam decision the SCOTSI was slightly divided in that Justice Goff and CJ Rush favored a discipline more harsh than the public reprimand.

The position of the CLB is that Todd Rokita should be sufficiently humiliated and penitent to either resign the office of AG or at least to pledge not to run for another term. It is noteworthy to the CLB that Rokita won the Republication nomination to the office over Attorney General Curtis Hill, who had recently been the subject of a short-term suspension from the practice of law.