The Office of the Prosecuting Attorney for Indiana’s 18th Judicial Circuit was created to prosecute the crimes committed against the State of Indiana within the states 18th Judicial Circuit, which is comprised of Hancock County. The Prosecuting Attorney, Brent E. Eaton and the Deputy Prosecuting Attorney’s represent the people of the State of Indiana in criminal proceedings initiated by the Prosec
uting Attorney and is also charged with the responsibility of counseling the victims of the crimes committed within its jurisdiction. In addition, the Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office represents its constituents in civil proceedings involving child support. POSTING POLICY
In order to better serve and communicate with the public, the Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney maintains an account through this third-party social media platform. This account is not meant to provide a public forum. While the views and comments of the public are welcome, this site is monitored and comments may be deleted to ensure compliance with the Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct. Submitting personally identifiable information (PII) is not required to interact with or access information from the Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney through this platform. To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, case numbers, or any other sensitive PII in your comments or responses. If you have specific questions regarding a Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney activity or program that involves details you do not wish to share publicly, please contact the office at (317) 477-1139. Defendants charged in a criminal case face a mere accusation of guilt and they are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. For this reason and others, prosecuting attorneys are not permitted to discuss certain aspects of their cases. For example, they cannot make statements that “have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding.” They cannot make statements regarding “the character, credibility, reputation or criminal record of a party, suspect in a criminal investigation or witness, or the identity of a witness, or the expected testimony of a party or witness.” Statements that a prosecuting attorney cannot make will be deleted from the website even when made by a member of the public and not the prosecuting attorney or staff. For more information see Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct 3.6 and 3.8(f) which are available here: https://www.in.gov/judiciary/rules/prof_conduct/index.html . The Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney also reserves the discretion to hide, delete or not allow comments that contain:
• Vulgar or abusive language;
• Personal or obscene attacks of any kind;
• Offensive terms targeting individuals or groups;
• Threats or defamatory statements;
• Links to any site;
• Suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity;
• Multiple successive off-topic posts by a single user or repetitive posts copied and pasted by multiple users, or spam;
• Unsolicited proposals or other business ideas or inquiries;
• Promotion or endorsement of commercial services, products, or entities; or • Personally identifiable information that has been inappropriately posted. Activity on a third-party social media platforms is governed by the security and privacy policies of the third-party. Please note: certain information associated with your account may be made available to us based on the privacy policies of the third-party and your privacy settings within that website. Each third-party platform may have unique features or practices. Individuals may wish to review the privacy policies of this platform before using it in order to understand how the information made available on this platform will be used. Individuals may also wish to adjust privacy settings on their accounts. The Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney encourages members of the public to offer comments as they relate to the topics being discussed. The views expressed in the comments reflect only those of the comment’s author, and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney. All comments, to include those removed from this platform, (including username and any identifying information provided) become publicly available, both at the time of posting and later, pursuant to Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act. Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, persons under the age of 13 years old are not allowed to submit questions or comments.
