The Indiana Supreme Court rightly changed its rules to give judicial candidates more freedom to discuss their views during election campaigns while still striving to maintain the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.

While this move was welcome, perhaps the more important question is whether Hoosiers are best served by electing judges. Further, should Indiana bring more consistency to a system that now allows some judges to be elected as Republicans and Democrats, others to be elected on a non-partisan basis and still others to be appointed?

What judicial candidates can say during a campaign has been the subject of a number of legal challenges. Many states, wanting to ensure that judges did not express a bias that could jeopardize their independence, drew strict limits on what judicial candidates could say during campaigns.

Some of those limits were so tight that they essentially prevented judges from saying much of anything, giving voters little to base their ballot selections on. After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out restrictions in Minnesota in 2002, rules in many other states – including Indiana’s – drew fire.

Indiana Right to Life and two judicial candidates – including Torrey Bauer, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for a Superior Court judgeship in Kosciusko County in 2008 – filed suit challenging Indiana judicial canons that strictly limited campaign speech.

The Right to Life organization sent questionnaires to candidates asking their views on issues; Bauer filled out the questionnaire and then later feared he could be disciplined. U.S. District Judge Theresa Springmann last year barred the state from enforcing the rules until she ruled on the overall case, rightly expressing concern about the free-speech rights of judicial candidates under the rules.

Because cases in other states had also questioned the rules in light of the Minnesota case, the American Bar Association drafted guidelines for new laws aimed at striking the balance between free speech for candidates and judicial impartiality. Indiana adopted the ABA’s suggestions on Jan. 1, and Springmann lifted her injunction this month, ruling that the new canons did indeed strike the correct balance.

While the new canons apparently give judicial candidates more leeway to discuss philosophies, Hoosiers and their lawmakers should reconsider whether having judges run for office is really the best way to achieve justice.

Allen County’s Superior Court judges were appointed until the 1980s, when a state lawmaker – with little public demand – changed the method to a non-partisan election. Yet incumbent Allen County judges are rarely challenged and seldom – if ever – defeated.

More telling, many judges retire midterm, when their successor will be appointed. Allen County has a judicial nominating commission that examines applications and submits three names to the governor, who appoints the judge. While potential exists for the governor to make blatantly partisan appointments, that has seldom occurred. If this system became the statewide model, lawmakers could also require retention votes, giving citizens an opportunity to remove judges.

As long as candidates must run for office, however, many may still continue to decline to answer questionnaires, particularly from highly ideological groups like Right to Life. When campaigning, candidates now have leeway to explain their legal philosophies but must continue to take care not to make pledges on how they would rule on specific cases.