Three candidates are running for re-election in the Monroe County Circuit Court this November. Each incumbent candidate is uncontested. The court has nine divisions and jurisdiction over cases filed in Monroe County. The judges serve six-year terms.
Each candidate began their term Jan. 1, 2019, and will conclude their term Dec. 31, 2024. If re-elected, each candidate will maintain their current case docket.
The following are the three candidates running for re-election:
Catherine Stafford
Catherine Stafford began her undergraduate studies at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota but transferred to IU Bloomington partway through her sophomore year. She graduated from IU with a bachelor’s in English and a certificate in medieval studies.
After taking a year off, Stafford said she attended the University of Minnesota Law School and graduated in 1997 with a law degree. She worked as the program director for the Minnesota Justice Foundation for two years before moving back to her hometown of Bloomington, where she worked at Indiana Legal Services. In 2004, she opened her law firm, Stafford Law Office, LLC, where she worked until she was elected a circuit court judge in 2019. At her law firm, Stafford practiced family law.
Stafford has also served as a guardian ad litem: investigating child abuse and neglect cases and giving recommendations to the court based on the child’s best interests.
As the judge of Monroe County Circuit Court Division IV, Stafford has a civil law docket which includes family law, small claims, evictions, name and gender marker changes, order of protection for domestic violence and stalking among other miscellaneous cases.
Stafford said one of her priorities as a circuit court judge is to ensure the court processes are straightforward for people who come into court without an attorney, since in civil cases, there is not a legally required right to an attorney.
She is a member of the Indiana Supreme Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee, the Indiana Domestic Relations Benchbook Committee and the Indiana Family Law Taskforce. Stafford also edited the custody chapter for the Domestic Relations Benchbook, which allowed her to develop guides for judges without a background in family law to use as an aid in conducting trials.
During her first term, Stafford helped to create the Eviction Prevention Program, which is a local group of non-profits who provide free mediation and legal advice to people going through eviction court.
Stafford has taught as an adjunct professor at the IU Maurer School of Law since 2002, teaching one class each semester. Every couple of years she teaches a Family Trial Practice course. She currently teaches a course called Mediation.
“In every case you should try these things: negotiate, mediate, then litigate,” Stafford said. Stafford said it is important for people who are interested in law to know courts are open to the public.
“I’d like to end with an invitation to any readers to come in and watch court,” Stafford said.
Christine Talley Haseman
Christine Talley Haseman attended Purdue University for one year of her undergraduate studies but transferred to IU Bloomington for her remaining three years of studies. She graduated from IU with a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the Kelley School of Business and worked at General Electric in Bloomington for two years before completing a master’s in marketing.
Haseman then worked with students with developmental disabilities at Bloomington High School North for a year before beginning law school. She graduated from Maurer with a law degree in 1995.
Haseman said her path to becoming a circuit court judge was not straightforward. She entered law school intending to become a prosecutor. When she graduated, she took an estate planning role at a large law firm in Louisville, Kentucky. Haseman then returned to her hometown of Bloomington to work for Ferguson and Ferguson where she continued to do estate planning as an associate attorney.
Around the same time, Haseman became a guardian ad litem, meaning she represented children in child abuse and neglect cases. The court is not bound to a guardian ad litem’s opinions, but often gives its opinions a significant amount of weight, according to Haseman.
In 2000, she opened her private practice, Haseman Law Office, in Bloomington, where she continued estate planning and being a guardian ad litem.
From 2004-2006, Haseman served as a juvenile court referee in the Lawrence County Circuit Court.
In 2008, Haseman became the judge of Monroe County Circuit Court Division VIII, hearing family law, protective order and small claims cases. She served in that position for a year before returning to Lawrence County to fill a deputy prosecutor position for two years. In 2011, Haseman returned to her private practice as an attorney at law.
She has also served as an Indiana Supreme Court Hearing Officer and a Judge Pro Tempore multiple times.
Haseman eventually ran for Monroe County Circuit Court in 2018 when she was elected to her current position. She serves as the Judge of Monroe County Circuit Court Division III.
As a circuit court judge, Haseman presides over criminal cases, including topics anywhere from traffic infractions to murder.
In addition to hearing cases, Haseman is a member of the Indiana Child Welfare Improvement Committee and on the board of directors for Stone Belt, a local chapter of a nonprofit organization serving people with developmental disabilities. She also is an adjunct instructor at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs where she teaches the Law and Public Affairs course.
Throughout her first term, Haseman worked closely with Monroe County Jail’s mental health care providers and staff to understand the needs of incarcerated individuals with mental illnesses.
"Raising awareness of these challenges within the criminal justice system, both to individuals working in the system as well as the general public, is a critical step in continuing to improve our ability to meet the needs of individuals suffering from mental illness who are involved in the criminal justice system," Haseman said.
Haseman’s judicial philosophy involves allowing both parties enough time to present their entire case rather than cutting them off prematurely.
“I try to make sure that people feel like they’ve been heard,” Haseman said. She also prioritizes treating everyone in her court with dignity, respect and fairness.
A primary concern of Haseman’s when it comes to criminal court is the significant mental health and substance abuse issues that many defendants face.
“Unfortunately, the treatment is either unavailable or inaccessible to people that need it,” Haseman said.
She said she aims to maintain a delicate balance between keeping the community safe and getting people in the criminal justice system the treatment they need. She hopes to create a program in Monroe County with services in which a case manager, mental health provider and psychiatric medication provider would be provided for people in the criminal justice system struggling with mental health issues.
Darcie Fawcett
Darcie Fawcett completed her undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology and education and a certificate in women’s studies. She earned her law degree from the Maurer School in 2001.
Following her graduation, Fawcett briefly worked at a firm in Bloomington called Mallor, Clendening, Grodner and Bohrer. She then worked at the Marion County prosecutor’s office and later worked at the Monroe County prosecutor's office until she ran for Monroe County Circuit Court judge in 2018.
Fawcett, like Haseman, covers criminal cases.
She puts emphasis on mental health in her position as the judge of Monroe County Circuit Court Division IX. She prioritizes referring defendants to the appropriate problem-solving courts in Monroe County, including the mental health court and the drug court, according to the defendant’s needs.
“I work from the assumption that whatever need a particular defendant has, say it is substance abuse or a mental health issue, is the underlying reason for their criminal behavior,” Fawcett said. “And if you can address that underlying need, there is the assumption that once that gets stabilized or under control, then the criminal behavior will stop.”
Fawcett is focused on ensuring caseworkers are assigned to defendants so the defendants can be put into supportive programs based on their needs. She prioritizes helping people receive rehabilitation to keep them out of the criminal justice system for good.
Since taking the bench, Fawcett notably began a brown bag quarterly lunch meeting that promotes communication between the criminal judges and the criminal bar of Monroe County.
Additionally, Fawcett is on the Monroe County Community Corrections advisory board, the Justice Reinvestment advisory council, the Indiana Supreme Court Commission on Race and Gender Fairness committee, the Judicial Readiness program subcommittee, the Monroe County Forms Committee and the Equity and Justice Best Practices subcommittee.
