Marion County State’s Attorney Tim Hudspeth says the new cashless bond law is behind a jump in both felony and misdemeanor cases during 2023.
Figures released by the Marion County Circuit Clerk’s office show 456 new cases this year, up 20 cases from 2022.
Hudspeth says the number of drug cases is up.
“It’s rare that we would have a defendant on a drug case that only has one. Typically they get two, three, and sometimes more. Part of that is due to the Safety Act, they are cited and released and we expect if they were not a danger for anyone else except for using drugs it was unlikely they were going to be detained. So that’s part of what has driven up the numbers in the felony cases.”
Hudspeth says the new law is also behind the number of new misdemeanor cases jumping from 184 in 2022 to 245 last year.
“The misdemeanors have gone up because we have a lot getting cited and released directly from the police department so they are getting a ticket, it goes to the circuit clerk’s office, it’s directly booked getting a case number right away before it’s even reviewed by someone in the prosecutor’s office. That’s part of why those numbers are up.”
Hudspeth says there is room for improvement on the current notice-to-appear system instituted to help deal with the new law.
“Try to flush out and figure out how we can make things work better without being a burden on law enforcement having to serve summons and things like that. We usually are sending a notice to appear and having to find them. We are not getting a high percentage showing up the first time.”
The number of juvenile adjudicatory cases nearly doubled in 2023 from 69 to 102 cases. Hudspeth says that is because his office is putting more emphasis on working with the families of troubled juveniles instead of waiting for them to appear in court as juvenile delinquents. Those cases dropped from 73 cases in 2022 to 40 last year.
Court records indicate a big increase in DUI arrests from 63 to 102. Major traffic cases dropped from 721 in 2022 to 696 last year. Traffic tickets increased from 2,013 to 2,449 last year.
The number of orders of protection fell from 322 to 269. The number of ordinance violation tickets increased slightly from 168 to 175.
On the civil side, law cases seeking over $50,000 dropped from 48 to 35. Civil cases seeking under $50,000 increased from 48 to 78 cases. Small claims cases increased slightly to 316 from 304 in 2022.
