Judge David Shaheed
Judge David Shaheed has a rich legal career spanning more than 30 years, including 20 years as a judge in both criminal and civil courts. In 1994, Shaheed began serving as a master commissioner in the Marion County Superior Courts and in 1999, he was appointed to the bench by Indiana Governor Frank O’Bannon. Shaheed was elected as a trial judge in 2003, and presided over Criminal Court 14 and the Drug Treatment Diversion Court. 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.
As a lawyer, Shaheed served as Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Indiana Unemployment Appeals Division, Legal Counsel to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development and Counsel to the Democratic Caucus of the Indiana House of Representatives in 1995. A warrior for justice, 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 in police custody.
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). He has served on the Board of Directors for Seeds of Hope, a shelter for women in recovery, and was a former officer for the Indiana Juvenile Justice Task Force and the Interfaith Alliance of Indianapolis.
Shaheed has been involved in interreligious dialogue for more than 20 years. In 2001, shortly after the September 11th terror attack in New York City, Shaheed spoke at Fordham University School of Law on Religious Freedom and Islam in America.
Shaheed is an international lecturer on a variety of topics, including:
- Common Law and the Status of Immigration in the United States
- The Obligation of Courts to Defendants with Mental Health Issues, International Conference on Cities. Rome, Italy. 2016
- Al-Islam in America, Conference on the Americas, Pontifical Urbaniana University. Rome, Italy. April, 2014.
- Law and Ethics in Professional Life, Focolare Expo Conference. Rosemont, Illinois.
- Interreligious Dialogue and Human Rights, SEDOS Conference. Rome, Italy.
Judge Shaheed earned his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Evansville in 1976 and his law degree from Indiana University’s Robert McKinney School of Law in 1984. Shaheed is the proud father of five children and has been married to his wife Brenda for forty-eight years.
March 2020