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Monday, June 23, 2008
Ind. Courts - Still more on: Johnson County court cancelled
In a long and interesting story headlined "Prosecutor back in action shortly after flood," Ryan Trares of the Johnson County Daily Journal reports today:
Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner has repeatedly been confronted by the same questions.How can you do your job if your files were destroyed in the floods? How many criminals are walking the streets because you can't prosecute?
Will convicted murderers like Michael Dean Overstreet, who is appealing his conviction in federal court, go free because the documents from their trials are waterlogged or no longer exist?
Hamner is quick to respond to these concerns: No crimes will go unprosecuted and not one appeal will be lost because of the high water.
"Nobody is walking out of the jail because our office got flooded out," Hamner said.
While the office's files and records were soaked by the water that flooded into the county headquarters at the Oren Wright Building, all of those documents can be recreated using files stored in the county courthouse.
The office's computer hard drives were salvaged, meaning staff members can work from that information.
Duplicating those papers creates extra work for the prosecutor's staff, as they sometimes need to consult police records to fill in some of the details.
But after twice the effort, all of the cases can be regenerated, he said.
For the prosecutor's office, there are no other options.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 23, 2008 04:33 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts