In 1846, Worden moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, after taking a liking to the city while visiting to assist in the prosecution of a local murder trial.
[1][3] In 1851, Worden became the prosecuting attorney for the 10th Indiana Circuit Court (which encompassed Allen, Adams, Wells, Huntington, Whitley, DeKalb, Noble, Steuben, LaGrange, Wabash, Elkhart, and Kosciusko counties).
[1][2][3] Worden was appointed to the Supreme Court by Democratic governor Ashbel P. Willard to replace the retiring Justice William Z. Stuart.
[2] Serving on the court during the Civil War, Worden and his fellow justices dealt with many cases relating to imposition of martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
In Skeen v. Monkeimer, the court ruled that a man who had been accused of stealing a horse that belonged to the U.S. government had been arrested and jailed wrongly, as there was no evidence of his having committed this crime.
Worden and his fellow Justices' challenges to these measure of martial law that encroached on civil liberties were eventually vindicated by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ex parte Milligan.
After leaving the court, Worden was elected mayor of Fort Wayne in 1865, but resigned from the position after only a year to focus on the demands of his growing law practice.
Critics attacked the court for the ruling, claiming that the decisions of Worden and his fellow Democratic Justices had been influenced by party politics.