JOHNSON COUNTY PROSECUTOR LANCE HAMNER JOINS THE SHOW

**Hammer** (0:12)
DNC Lounge in Greenwood, ladies and gentlemen.
Hammer and Nigel Road Show, 202 West Main Street, cocktails and cigars, much more. My name is Nigel Jason Hammer is here with a very special guest.

**Nigel** (0:27)
Johnson County Prosecutor, Lance Hamner joins us.

**Hammer** (0:32)
Prosecutor.

**Nigel** (0:33)
How are you, my friend?

**Lance Hamner** (0:34)
Good to be here, I'm doing very well.

**Nigel** (0:36)
I feel like this is that moment, kind of like when Letterman hosted the Academy Awards, Oprah, Uma, Uma, Oprah, Hammer, Hamner, Hamner, Hammer.

**Lance Hamner** (0:47)
That's fair to say. And in fact, when I was running for prosecutor, I used a hammer on there. I just kind of stole it from you.

**Nigel** (0:54)
We love talking to you because it's refreshing to have a prosecutor who hates bad guys, unlike where we live in Marion County. Listen to that.
What's working for you in Johnson County?

**Lance Hamner** (1:07)
When I came in as prosecutor, I gave them my deputy prosecutors, my philosophy, which is basically, we enforce the law with the objective of protecting the public. It's not just because the laws are there to be enforced. The laws are there as a tool to protect our people. So that's always our first and foremost goal is, how does this help and protect the people?
As a consequence of that, if we have somebody, a crime with a victim in it, we're going to give that a lot of attention, and we're going to make sure that we're getting, do the best we can to get justice for those poor folks.

**Nigel** (1:41)
And you've worked in Marion County before. Like, when you look at your bio, it's not like you don't know what it's like in the big city. You've been to Marion County, and you've probably at some point said to yourself, I want to do the opposite.

**Lance Hamner** (1:54)
Well, at the time, I thought we were doing a really good job. When I was a deputy prosecutor, it was under Steve Goldsmith, and when, and I learned a lot of stuff from him, I also learned how to do trials there. So I owe the Marion County system a lot with regard to how to do what I do. And when I came down, I just had a few years experience, just a few years experience, but I had lots and lots of trials under my belt, so I knew what I was doing.

**Hammer** (2:20)
Go back to Goldsmith, just for a second, what did you learn? What is the number one thing you think you picked up from him as a young prosecutor? Because that's a pretty legendary name when it comes to prosecutors in Marion County.

**Lance Hamner** (2:31)
When you say that, you, the first thing that came to my mind was when I was just a baby prosecutor, walked in there with all the big boys and all the guys who had been doing all the big cases and everything, I was just had wide eyes and I just wanted to learn something. We went to a big meeting and, and again, I'm just an observer, but the big boys were all talking, and I remember they were talking about some issue, I don't even remember what it was, but at some point there were several opinions given, and then Steve said, what's the best interest of the tax payers? And, and, and the guy says, well, obviously it's option B, whatever it was. And he goes, then that's what we're going to do. We really don't have a choice. And I remember sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I have a statesman as my boss here. And I was so impressed that I recently wrote him a letter just a couple of years ago. And I told him about that. I said, you inspired me clear back then. And I'll always be grateful for it.

**Nigel** (3:27)
Lance Hamner is our guest prosecutor here in Johnson County.
A lot has changed since the Goldsmith days in Marion County. A lot has changed since Terry Curry was the prosecutor. And that wasn't that long ago. How many Indianapolis, Marion County problems do you have to deal with here in Johnson County?

**Lance Hamner** (3:49)
We do have a whole lot of spillover crime here in Johnson County. And I could be wrong, but I think it's actually a little bit more than some of the other Donut counties, because we have several main arteries that lead right into Johnson County. And criminals are not always sure when they've crossed the line. But I think that the sheriff told me last time we discussed this, that about 40 to 45 percent of our jail is full of Marion County, as we term Marion County criminals that have crossed the line.