News & Commentary

James Wierciak is a Hamilton County, Ind. resident who has been prescribed pain medications for nearly two decades to manage the chronic pain caused by a variety of health problems. But in late 2013, the Indiana Medical Licensing Board adopted new rules requiring people like James who receive certain levels of common pain medications from their physicians to sign a treatment agreement that mandates annual drug testing.

According to the 2012 United States Census, full-time working Hoosier women earn only 73 cents for every dollar men earn. This gender pay gap is particularly critical in an economy where more than 65 percent of women are primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in their households. This pay gap reduces a woman's and her family's assets by $431,000 in pay over a 40-year career.

The youngest person ever put on death row was Paula Cooper of Gary, Ind. She was 15 when the crime was committed. At the time she was sentenced, Indiana law permitted executions for those as young as 10. Her sentence, death in the electric chair for fatally stabbing a 78 year-old woman in a burglary, attracted international attention. Even Pope John Paul II condemned the sentence and urged clemency. In 1987, the Indiana legislature passed a bill raising the minimum age for a defendant in a death penalty case from 10 to 16 years old. However, since the bill was not retroactive, Cooper's status was not affected.

On Nov. 6, the Indiana Supreme Court issued a ruling that reversed the trial court's decision, saying "Indiana's personalized license plates are government speech," and that denial of a personalized license plate does not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments. A copy of the decision, No. 49S00-1407-PL-494, can be downloaded here.

Eric Smith, of Lebanon, Ind., came to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in downtown Indianapolis in July 2012 to express his opposition to the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which he believed threatened his Second Amendment rights.

Through door-to-door democracy, the Indiana affiliate of the Citizens Action Coalition (CAC) has been able to advocate effectively for nearly four decades on behalf of Hoosiers. CAC canvassers go from house to house in residential neighborhoods during the evening hours to educate citizens and gather petition signatures on issues such as utility rates and regulations, health care, and the environment.

Daniel Littlepage, a Native American, is a prisoner confined at the Miami Correctional Facility located in Bunker Hill, Indiana. His religion requires him, among other things, to pray with others in a Sacred Circle. John Walker Lindh, a prisoner at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Ind., practices Islam, which requires him to participate in group prayer. Paul Veal, a prisoner at the Pendleton Correctional Facility, is a practicing African Hebrew Israelite, a religion which mandates communal worship and study as a necessary component of creating a lifestyle that complies with the desires and commandments of God.

In 1970, when Larry Reuben first started "hanging out at the ICLU," he was a law student at Indiana University. In 1972, Larry graduated and set up practice not far from the Thomas Building on East Washington Street in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, as it was then known, was located.

Wanting to educate the public about the fine details of the federal healthcare law, attorney David Kolhoff contacted the Allen County Public Library about setting up his laptop on a mobile cart in a large open plaza abutting the library.