Indiana counties blew through courthouses at an astonishing pace in centuries past. It’s easy to find counties that built three or four before a permanent county seat was established! It’s almost unheard of for a modern city to cycle through courthouses so rapidly, but Muncie has. The 1992 Delaware County Justice Center was courthouse number five.
Delaware County’s fourth courthouse was built in 1969. The fifth was first intended to replace the decrepit county jail. Inmates filed suit over the filthy structure’s inhumane conditions in 19781, and construction of a new one, the Delaware County Justice Center, was approved three years later.
At first, the building was a joint venture between the city and county designed to house the police force and sheriff’s department. Unfortunately, costs ballooned from $6.5 million in 1982 to $14 million the following year2. Mayor Jim Carey balked once estimates reached $16 million, and Muncie pulled out of the project to buy land for a new city hall instead.
Carey’s about-face put county commissioners in a pickle. Stuck with a prospective building that was way too big, they scrambled to find other offices to relocate into it. Although the thirteen-year-old courthouse was designed with expansion in mind3, officials decided to move the courts to the new structure.
Work on the Justice Center began with groundbreaking ceremonies in 1988. The building was to be completed in 1990, but it wasn’t so easy for a city notorious for boondoggles and political corruption. Defects in the original plans led to 526 change orders, a two-year delay, and a $6 million overrun! By 1990, a federal judge appointed a Shelbyville lawyer as “Special Master of the Justice Center,” giving him full control over the flimflam.
The building was a trainwreck. An attorney unscrewed a staircase bolt by hand, and fed-up citizens concocted nicknames for it like the “Injustice Center” and the “Just-Off Center.” Commissioners fired and sued the original architects and engineers, alleging negligence and breach of contract.
Local architect J. Robert Taylor was brought in to do what he could to rescue the project. Taylor acknowledged the building’s derisive monikers by confirming that it was, in fact, “off-center in every way,” and that “there were a lot of dimensional problems4.” One issue was with the building’s grand staircase, designed in an open manner that allowed people to walk behind and smack their heads on it. Taylor brought in some fourteen-foot palms to surround it and lessen the likelihood of an injury.
The justice center finally opened in stages in 1992, but the problems were far from over. It was quickly discovered that the warranty for the building’s electrical equipment was set to expire before the justice center would even be fully occupied! Then, Judge Richard Dailey refused to move his court from the fourth courthouse.
The building’s new computers didn’t work, so commissioners sued the company that provided them. Soon after that, furniture that was supposed to be moved from the county building to the justice center wound up missing. Finally, a convicted drug dealer escaped.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the company that supplied the justice center’s detention equipment went out of business that June. Two months later, officials learned the shuttered company still had keys to all the jail cells! The building manager quit shortly after, and the building was found to violate the fire code for the second time in a year5.
Delaware County was stuck paying its final cost of $63 million until 2014, but officials weren’t out of the woods yet. The jail portion of the justice center was designed to hold 120 inmates but routinely housed more than 300 by 2017. A state inspector told officials the building was headed for a “critical” incident unless something changed6. Ill-tempered prisoners routinely displayed their aggression by stuffing their toilets with rags and flooding the courtrooms below.
County officials started to get real about relocating everything. They purchased the former Wilson Middle School for $3 million several years ago and spent up to $45 million to renovate it into a new, 500-bed jail7. The final trial at the twenty-eight-year-old Delaware County Justice Center concluded on October 29, 20208, and the county clerk’s office moved to Wilson -officially the Delaware County Justice and Rehabilitation Center- a few months later.
Today, if you can believe it, Delaware County’s fifth courthouse, the old Justice Center, is being converted into luxury condominiums!
TL;DR
Delaware County (pop. 117,671, 14/92)
Muncie (pop. 70.085).
Built: 1992
Cost: $63 million (estimated)
Architect: Polson Associates and Graham, Love, and Graham; J. Robert Taylor
Style: Modern
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 3 stories
Current use: Under renovation
Photographed: 7/18/16 and 3/18/18
Sources Cited
1 Roysdon, Keith. “Delaware County to buy former Wilson Middle School for new jail” The Star Press [Muncie]: February 27, 2018. Retrieved 3/18/18.
2 Roysdon, Keith. “Delaware County’s jail history a story of failure, millions spent” The Star Press [Muncie]. August 3, 2018. Retrieved 2/14/21.
3 “That New Cornerstone is a Milestone, Too” The Muncie Evening Press [Muncie] October 25, 1968: 5. Print.
4 “Justice” The Muncie Star [Muncie] April 19, 1992: 14. Print.
5 “It’s built, and it’s occupied, but the story isn’t over yet” The Muncie Star [Muncie]. December 27, 1992: 1 Print.
6 “New Delaware County jail: Up to $50 million, 500 beds” Indiana Economic Digest. January 2, 2018. Retrieved 3/18/18.
7 Delaware County Buys Old Wilson School For New Jail” February 28, 2018. WBAT. Retrieved 3/18/18.
8 Walker, Douglas. “Downtown Justice Center has likely seen its last trial” The Star Press [Muncie]: December 15, 2020. Retrieved 12/20/20.
10 Ohlenkamp, Corey “Delaware County Justice Center starts operations soon. Here’s when it will open” The Star Press [Muncie]. February 12, 2021. Retrieved 2/14/21.
