Montgomery County’s prosecutors handle everything from speeding tickets to attempted murder, and last year they did it 1,565 times. That tally for 2025 includes 1,065 misdemeanors, 383 Level 6 felonies, 71 Level 5 felonies and 46 major felonies, a category that runs from Level 4 felonies up to attempted murder. It is actually lower than the office’s recent high-water mark of 1,828
cases in 2023, a surge that followed years of elevated filings after the pandemic.
Deputy Prosecutor Jacob Moore told the January 9 Lunch with the League crowd that his five-attorney team reviews every criminal case that comes from law enforcement and decides what charges, if any, are appropriate. That covers criminal cases and traffic infractions, but not civil ordinance matters like parking tickets or noise complaints.
The office is also responsible for drafting and processing search warrants, a workload that has climbed from about 300 in 2022 to roughly 525 in 2025. Prosecutors advise officers in real time, which is why someone from the office is always on call.
“If we are not on call to answer those questions, we're putting law enforcement in a situation where they're having to make decisions that a lawyer really should be making—on the side of the road while they're trying to make sure that they're safe, the people they're interacting with are safe, that they're collecting evidence in the proper way,” said Moore.
Moore said that having prosecutors on call helps protect constitutional rights while strengthening cases against later legal challenges to searches and seizures.
Prosecutors are not investigators, Moore said, and should not be out building cases themselves. If they did, they could become witnesses and be barred from handling those prosecutions.
Instead, when a resident suspects fraud or a scam, the instruction is clear: call law enforcement, not the prosecutor’s office.
Once law enforcement submits a report, prosecutors review the evidence, check that rights were not violated, and then decide whether to file the same, fewer or additional charges beyond what the officer recommended. Most cases resolve short of trial—Moore estimated fewer than 10 jury trials out of 1,565 filings last year. Plea agreements and diversion programs, he said, balance accountability with rehabilitation, especially in substance-related crimes where untreated addiction feeds recidivism.
Behind the caseload numbers, Moore outlined a looming personnel crunch. The Montgomery County office now has five criminal prosecutors and four support staff, plus a separate child support division. However, three of the five prosecutors are expected to retire within about two years. By mid‑2027, only Moore and one other prosecutor are projected to remain, even as the county grows and adds police officers who will generate more cases.
Complicating matters, recruiting replacements is harder than it sounds. Indiana is down to three law schools after closures at Valparaiso and Indiana Tech, and many graduates carry debt that pushes them toward jobs that pay higher than small‑county prosecution can offer. Moore criticized the bar exam and law school focus on appellate work in generic jurisdictions instead of practical training in Indiana law. Like other rural counties, Montgomery County must compete on salary with larger counties while funding three of its five prosecutor positions locally. The state funds the other two.
On the ground, Moore said that much of the docket centers on domestic violence and substance misuse. Domestic violence cases are among law enforcement’s most dangerous calls, and prosecutors often seek convictions that restrict abusers’ access to firearms and allow stiffer penalties for repeat offenses or violations of no‑contact orders.
Drug cases feed both punishment and problem‑solving courts. The county’s Veterans Treatment Court and Drug Treatment Court aim to keep people with addiction issues in intensive, community‑based treatment rather than send them to the Department of Corrections, where they may leave with no housing, job or support. Moore said those programs have reduced recidivism and changed attitudes, with participants generally more respectful and less combative when they do re‑enter the system.
Electronic crimes have become Moore’s reluctant specialty. Montgomery County’s Internet Crimes Against Children work has grown enough that local investigators now assist neighboring rural counties in building child sex abuse material cases. Those investigations rely on a national system that flags known illegal images by digital data, often through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Moore warned that simple possession of abuse images is not benign and tends to escalate in severity over time. He also cautioned parents about posting children’s photos online, noting cases where benign pictures were used to generate realistic explicit images with artificial intelligence.
Beyond child exploitation, the office sees complex fraud and cryptocurrency scams that are often difficult to prosecute. In one case, a scammer used fraudulent credit cards to steal from businesses across the country and appeared tied to a Caribbean‑based gang. Bitcoin, Moore said, is “the bane” of his existence because its design and foreign‑based wallets make tracing scam payments extraordinarily difficult for local authorities. He warned against one scam, saying that no legitimate agency will ever demand bond money in Bitcoin, nor will they ever call ahead to warn of an arrest.
On marijuana, Moore spoke personally rather than for the office. He argued that a medical‑only model, as seen in some states, can complicate probation and problem‑solving courts by allowing people with addiction issues to substitute one substance for another. Whatever the policy debate, he said that prosecutors are not lawmakers and should not decide wholesale which crimes to ignore; their role is to enforce statutes as written, represent victims and the community, and leave lawmaking to legislators.