Magistrate notes experience

By John Kline
THE GOSHEN NEWS

May 04, 2008 12:20 am

— A Goshen resident who has worked as a magistrate for 12 years is among the five candidates seeking the Republican judicial nomination for Elkhart County Superior Court 5.
“I have the skills that are needed for this kind of job,” Murto said of his reasons for deciding to become a candidate. “I’ve been working as magistrate judge for the last 12 years, and the type of assignments I get are generally a brief involvement of a case, of which I do thousands of cases a year.
“A percentage of my cases are full involvement, beginning to end, but it’s a minority, and I want to have a more complete involvement in my caseload,” he said.
Murto, who ran unsuccessfully 12 years ago for the position of judge of Superior Court 3, said he never really gave up the idea of running for a judgeship position.
“I’ve had the idea of running for judge in mind for some time,” Murto said. “I’ve been happy in my work as a magistrate, but there’s a limit to my involvement, so once Judge Rieckhoff made the decision to retire this past fall, we talked about it at home and decided this was the time that I should run.”
As for why he feels he is the most qualified candidate for the position, Murto noted what he considers his broad understanding and experience with the law coupled with his ability to work well with a wide variety of people.
“In my private practice I had a traditional small-town general practice taking on all sorts of cases — almost everything imaginable. I also was a managing partner, and had to deal with personnel hiring and firing — mostly hiring — and I also had the additional experience of owning and running a small business,” Murto said. “As a judge, I’ve mainly worked in a high volume context both in small claims and criminal court, and in fact in Superior Court 5 a significant amount of time, so I have the experience required.
“A contested judicial race doesn’t come along very often, and I think that practical experience is an important factor in this particular race. I think I have the best experience and in my opinion the best skills as a judge in order to do this job right,” he said.
If elected, Murto said he will leave the court primarily as it is, with only a few minor exceptions.
“This is already a model court for the high-volume case load,” Murto said. “Really all I would be looking at is adding video court, mainly to connect up with the jail.”
Murto, an avid outdoorsman, lives with his wife in Goshen. They have five children.