Judge David Shaheed
Greg Fisk
Judge David Shaheed serves as Midwest Coordinator for American Coalition for Good Government. Judge Shaheed has a rich legal career spanning more than 30 years, including 20 years as a judge in both criminal and civil courts. In 2005, Judge Shaheed launched Marion County’s Re-entry Court, only the second re-entry court in the State of Indiana. Shaheed was named “Judge of the Year”in 2007 by The Indiana Correctional Association for his work with ex-offenders and defendants seeking recovery from substance abuse.
Shaheed is familiar with cases involving police and young black men. Shaheed spent eight years as co-counsel in the wrongful case of the Estate of Michael Taylor v. The City of Indianapolis, ultimately winning a $3.5 million-dollar verdict in 1996 for the mother of a sixteen-year-old African-American youth found dead while hand-cuffed in police custody. Although the police department claimed Taylor committed suicide by shooting himself in the head while in the back seat of the patrol car, Shaheed and legendary civil rights attorney, John Moss, convinced an all-white jury to award damages for the wrongful death of the teenager.
Shaheed is an associate professor at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) in Indianapolis. He is also a member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs (CoLAP).