Sent to the Journal Gazette:
Zoeller knows best how to be attorney general
The recent political advertisements on behalf of Democratic attorney general candidate Linda Pence leave voters with an inaccurate impression of the job duties of the attorney general.
If voters are to make an informed decision with regard to the candidates they choose, it is vitally important to understand what the job duties consist of for the positions that they are voting for.
It is easy to claim that you want to protect children and pursue predators, but the office of attorney general is not an office of a prosecuting attorney. With the exception of environmental crimes, the attorney general has no ability to go into individual counties to prosecute criminal cases, whether those criminal cases include children victimized by violence or any other criminal offense. The office of attorney general is not a “super prosecutor.”
The attorney general has no statutory authority to initiate these criminal cases. The office of attorney general instead represents the state of Indiana in the following way: When a local prosecutor achieves a conviction in a criminal case, that conviction may be appealed by the defendant. It is then up to the attorney general’s office to represent the state and the local prosecution at the appellate level to preserve the conviction.
I wholeheartedly endorse Greg Zoeller for the office of attorney general because of his experience with the attorney general’s office. Steve Carter has been an exemplary attorney general. His chief deputy has been Greg Zoeller, who is well aware of how the office functions and how to best serve Hoosiers.
The fact that Pence continues to run an ad that allows Hoosier voters to reach an inaccurate conclusion as to the job duties that she seeks to fill, especially her inaccurate focus on protection of children from predators when she has no statutory authority to file or try these types of criminal cases, makes the choice for attorney general and the vote for Zoeller even more important.
Zoeller’s statement that local prosecutors put defendants in jail, and it’s his office’s duty to keep them there is an accurate description of what the office of attorney general is supposed to do, and his clear understanding of his mission merits our support.
KAREN E. RICHARDS Prosecuting Attorney 38th Judicial Circuit State of Indiana
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