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Voters to decide if four state-level judges should be retained in office

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Voters in the Nov. 4 election will be asked to decide whether or not four state-level judges should be retained in office.

Judges on the ballot are Loretta H. Rush and Mark S. Massa, of the Indiana Supreme Court; Rudolph Reginald Pyle III, of the Indiana Court of Appeals Fourth District; and Martha Wentworth, of the Indiana Tax Court.
In Indiana, judges are nominated for positions in state courts by a seven-member Judicial Nominating Commission.
The final appointment is made by the governor.

After the judge has served two full years, his or her name is placed on the ballot of the next general election so that Hoosier voters can decide if the judge should remain in office. After that, their names are placed on the ballot every 10 years for a retention vote.
Rush was appointed to the Indiana Supreme Court in 2012 and became chief justice in 2014. She previously served 14 years as judge of Tippecanoe Superior Court 3.

She serves as chair of the Commission on Improving the Status of Children in Indiana and the Indiana Conference for Legal Education Opportunity. She is on the Judicial Conference Juvenile Justice Improvement Committee, the Judicial Conference Problem-Solving Courts Committee and the State Board of Law Examiners.

A native of Pennsylvania, Rush has lived in Indiana since 1972. She is a graduate of Purdue University and the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, in Bloomington.

Massa, a native of Milwaukee, WI, was appointed to the Indiana Supreme Court in 2012.

Massa earned a Bachelor of Arts from Indiana University in 1983 and, after graduating, worked as a reporter for The Evansville Press. He worked as a speechwriter and deputy press secretary for Gov. Robert Orr while attending the Indiana University Robert J. McKinney School of Law, where he graduated in 1989.

Prior to his appointment to the Indiana Supreme Court, Massa served as executive director of the Indiana Criminal Justice institute, general counsel to Gov. Mitch Daniels, assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Indiana and chief counsel to the Marion County Prosecutor's Office.

Pyle was appointed to the Fourth District Court of Appeals in 2012.

A native of Rhode Island, Pyle earned degrees in political science and history from Anderson University and a master's degree from the Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA. He served as an Indiana State Trooper before enrolling at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington.

Pyle has served as a judicial clerk in the Court of Appeals, as a deputy prosecuting attorney in Madison County and as judge of the Madison Circuit Court.
Wentworth has served as judge of the Indiana Tax Court since 2011.

Wentworth, a Michigan native, moved to Indiana during high school. She earned undergraduate degrees from the former Bennett College, of Millbrook, NY, and Indiana University, Bloomington. She holds a law degree from Indiana University's Maurer School of Law.

Wentworth has served as a clerk in the tax court, practiced tax law in Indianapolis and served as tax director for Deloitte Tax LLP.