00:00:11
Speaker 1: DNC Lounge in Greenwood, Ladies and Gentlemen. Hammer and Nigel road Show two of two West Main Street Cocktails and Cigars much more. My name is Nigel, Jason Hammer is here with a very special guests.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner joins us prosecutor.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: How are you, my friend? Good to be here. I'm doing very well.
00:00:36
Speaker 2: I feel like this is that moment, kind of like when a Letterman host of the Academy Awards Oprah Uma Uma, Oprah Hammer Hamner, Hamner Hammer.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: That's fair to say.
00:00:47
Speaker 4: And in fact, when I was running for prosecutor, I used a hammer on there.
00:00:51
Speaker 3: I just kind of stole where it is, stole it from you.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: We love talking to you because it's refreshing to have a prosecutor who hates bad guys, unlike where we.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: Live at the valley in County. Listen to that.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: What's working for you in Johnson County.
00:01:07
Speaker 4: 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, and 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.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: 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.
00:01:54
Speaker 4: Well, at the time, I thought we were doing a really good job. When I was a deputy prosecutor was under Steve Goldsmith and when and I learned a lot of stuff from him, and I also learned how to do trials there. So I owe the Marion County system a lot with regard to how 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.
00:02:20
Speaker 1: Go back to Goldsmith just for a second. What did you learn from Like, what is the number one thing you think you picked up from him as a young prosecutor, because that name, that's a pretty legendary name when it comes to prosecutors in Mary County.
00:02:31
Speaker 4: When you say that, 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 again I'm just an observer, but the big boys were all talking, and I remember they were talking about some issue.
00:02:53
Speaker 3: I don't even remember what it was, but at some point there were several.
00:02:57
Speaker 4: Opinions given and then Steve said, what's in the best interests of the taxpayers? And the guy says, well, obviously it's option be whatever it was, and he goes and that's what we're going to do.
00:03:09
Speaker 3: We really don't have a choice.
00:03:11
Speaker 4: 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.
00:03:27
Speaker 2: Lance Hamner is our guest prosecutor here in Johnson County. A lot has changed since the Goldsmith days in Marion County, you know, a lot of 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.
00:03:49
Speaker 4: We do have a whole lot of spill over 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 john Shorty, 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 forty to forty five percent of our jail is full of Marion County as we as we term Marion County criminals that have crossed the line.
00:04:18
Speaker 2: So nearly half of your lock up is from Marion County.
00:04:22
Speaker 4: Yes, imagine if you're a County, several counties over from Marion County.
00:04:26
Speaker 3: You just don't get that.
00:04:27
Speaker 4: You get maybe one or two, three or four, but when we're right up against them, it's almost half.
00:04:33
Speaker 3: Now.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: I believe the Marian County prosecutor would hear your words and say, you use a word like disingenuous when talking about the crime that is crossing over from Marion County like he did with Suefincom and Carmel, like he did with It's like this is a political some sort of political talking point or something like that. Would you point this out? What do you say to something like that when he uses words like disingenuous.
00:05:00
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm only speaking from the actual statistics, and I don't want to go in and and criticize another prosecutor's office. I just know that we are getting that kind of crime spilling over out of Johnson County or out of Marion County into Johnson County, and the numbers they speak for themselves.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he criticized you guys though, I mean, and I get it.
00:05:24
Speaker 2: I get it. You don't want to criticize when you don't have to and stir up some sort of political hornets nest. But at the same time, I remember seeing a billboard in Johnson County that says, in this county you will be arrested, or something similar to that.
00:05:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's we had that billboard and the signal was I couldn't I couldn't even tell you how many times I've had both Marion County law enforcement officers and our own law enforcements enforcement officers when they catch somebody, the first thing out of their mouth is which side of the line am I on? Because they know that they're going to get hammered by our judge as well as our prosecutor here.
00:06:02
Speaker 3: The judges are a big part of this, right huge.
00:06:04
Speaker 4: Yes, that's one of the things that when I was a deputy prosecutor Marion County, I was frustrated lots of times because I wouldn't get the sentence that I thought was even close to appropriate.
00:06:14
Speaker 3: But you know, that's all in the past.
00:06:17
Speaker 4: I'm just saying the judges are obviously a really big part of it. When I was prosecutor here for eighteen years and then left to become a judge, and I always when I ran for judge.
00:06:29
Speaker 3: When I became judge, my goal was to be the.
00:06:31
Speaker 4: Judge that I always wanted to practice in front of not because the state's always right, but because I wanted to be the guy who is going to take the facts and apply it to the law and.
00:06:41
Speaker 3: Do what it takes to protect the public.
00:06:43
Speaker 4: The reason we have a system is to protect the public.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: It's not just to give everybody a job.
00:06:49
Speaker 4: It's to make sure It's the reason we coalesced as a society.
00:06:53
Speaker 3: Clear back from the Stone Age.
00:06:55
Speaker 4: It's to protect people from those marauders among us who won't live in a civilize society.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: I feel like soft on crime prosecutors like Meers in Marion County sometimes try to pretend like they're tough and they use the judges as an excuse as to why they're repeat offenders out in the revolving door or the criminal justice system. Is that always a legitimate excuse.
00:07:19
Speaker 3: I don't think it always is. No.
00:07:21
Speaker 4: I do think that you have to have certain standards and say, our goal for somebody who commits a certain crime is going to be to get this much time on them, and if they don't want to take the plea offer, then they're going to go to trial and they're.
00:07:33
Speaker 3: Going to lose. And that's the signal that.
00:07:36
Speaker 4: Quite honestly, when I became prosecutor the very first time, we brought down a bunch of several young people, young prosecutors like myself from Marion County, and we let them know right off the top, we're going to make an offer and you're going to accept it or you're going to go to trial.
00:07:51
Speaker 3: And they thought, you know, they're a bunch of young kids, are not going to be that good.
00:07:54
Speaker 4: And after they got a whole bunch of convictions, all of a sudden they took us seriously.
00:07:59
Speaker 2: So it's Hamner is our guest.
00:08:01
Speaker 3: He's a prosecutor.
00:08:02
Speaker 2: Here in Johnson County, which covers white Lynn and Greenwood and some other big cities just right south of Marion County. Local elections matter. This kind of goes back to that judges discussion. Not all judges are picked by the public, but there's a lot that are on the ballot, and when you don't show up for local elections, more often than not, bad judges or soft on crime judges get retained.
00:08:28
Speaker 3: Is that a problem.
00:08:29
Speaker 4: I'm glad that you bring that up, because a lot of the how many times have you talked to a voter and they go well, I always vote for president. That probably, at least until recently, doesn't affect them as much as the local elections do. And the fact is the local elections are huge. Your quality of life is going to be determined by how well you're protected at the local level. So it's extremely important. I know it's a long answer to a short question, but it's worth exploring it because it is a huge issue.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Is it worth exploring throwing the book at first time offenders, especially if they're young. Is that a way to tamp down the crime stats in some of these in Marion County for example, like you know again, the soft on crime prosecutor there is that. Well, all you all's the FOP wants to do is lock people up. All they want to do is put them in jail. Well, yeah, I think that's to me. I'm speaking for myself here, mister prosecutor. I'm speaking for myself when I say, yeah, I want to put them in jail. I don't care how young they are, and I don't care if it's their first time or not. Is there something to be said for I don't know, teaching them a lesson.
00:09:43
Speaker 3: In setting precedent. Good question.
00:09:46
Speaker 4: The goals of the criminal justice system are generally considered either four or fivefold. One of them, one of them, and one of the ones that the public generally thinks of most is deterrence.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: And there's two kinds of deterrence.
00:09:57
Speaker 4: Specific deterrence, I commit a crime in trouble, I won't ever do it again because I got spanked hard. And the other one is the other criminals look and see what happened to me, and then they go, why I don't want. I don't want what happened to Lance happened to me, and so those guys are deterred too. I think there is a huge if it's a crime that's serious. I think if you have a victim, there needs to be some kind of hard hit at the very beginning, or all they learn is nothing happens. If they have a series of crimes and nothing happens first, second, or third time, and you finally go, well we'll get we'll get tough on the third or fourth or fifth, you've conditioned them to think that nothing's going to happen. So if you smack them the first time, you do send a signal, both generally and specifically. When I was a judge, if I had somebody with a victim. They're going to serve some jail time. They're going to know every morning when they wake up and look in the mirror, why am I in jail, It's because I did that crime.
00:10:53
Speaker 3: I'm never going to do it again.
00:10:55
Speaker 4: Yes, I think specific deterrence is a major issue.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: Last question here for prosecutor Or Lance Hamner. I know in other big sitties around the country, you see these street takeovers where young folks in their twenties, maybe even younger, go out hijack a street. They're doing donuts, they're burning fires, they're street racing. We see that a little bit in Marion County. How do you prevent that, how.
00:11:19
Speaker 3: Do you stop that? And how would you prosecute that?
00:11:22
Speaker 4: If the police catch them and we have the evidence, they should be prosecuted and they should be asking for jail time and a significant amount of jail time, not just an overnight bailout. I mean when the sent when the judge sentences them, when you make an offer to settle the case, it should include a substantial amount of jail time first time, every time, so that the guys who are not specifically deterred because they haven't been in trouble before. We'll look at what happened to other guys and go wow. Man, even doing it once you're going to get at least a certain amount of time in jail.
00:11:54
Speaker 3: I don't want to do that.
00:11:55
Speaker 4: Yes, I think you hammer them to let them know that it's not going to be.
00:11:59
Speaker 3: Tolerated, not even once.
00:12:01
Speaker 2: Prosecutor Lance Hamner, thank you for welcoming us here to Johnson County.
00:12:05
Speaker 3: We appreciate it. Man, Thank you. We'd like you to come back. Stahammer and Nigel Show, thank you.
Speaker 1: DNC Lounge in Greenwood, Ladies and Gentlemen. Hammer and Nigel road Show two of two West Main Street Cocktails and Cigars much more. My name is Nigel, Jason Hammer is here with a very special guests.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner joins us prosecutor.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: How are you, my friend? Good to be here. I'm doing very well.
00:00:36
Speaker 2: I feel like this is that moment, kind of like when a Letterman host of the Academy Awards Oprah Uma Uma, Oprah Hammer Hamner, Hamner Hammer.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: That's fair to say.
00:00:47
Speaker 4: And in fact, when I was running for prosecutor, I used a hammer on there.
00:00:51
Speaker 3: I just kind of stole where it is, stole it from you.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: We love talking to you because it's refreshing to have a prosecutor who hates bad guys, unlike where we.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: Live at the valley in County. Listen to that.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: What's working for you in Johnson County.
00:01:07
Speaker 4: 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, and 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.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: 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.
00:01:54
Speaker 4: Well, at the time, I thought we were doing a really good job. When I was a deputy prosecutor was under Steve Goldsmith and when and I learned a lot of stuff from him, and I also learned how to do trials there. So I owe the Marion County system a lot with regard to how 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.
00:02:20
Speaker 1: Go back to Goldsmith just for a second. What did you learn from Like, what is the number one thing you think you picked up from him as a young prosecutor, because that name, that's a pretty legendary name when it comes to prosecutors in Mary County.
00:02:31
Speaker 4: When you say that, 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 again I'm just an observer, but the big boys were all talking, and I remember they were talking about some issue.
00:02:53
Speaker 3: I don't even remember what it was, but at some point there were several.
00:02:57
Speaker 4: Opinions given and then Steve said, what's in the best interests of the taxpayers? And the guy says, well, obviously it's option be whatever it was, and he goes and that's what we're going to do.
00:03:09
Speaker 3: We really don't have a choice.
00:03:11
Speaker 4: 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.
00:03:27
Speaker 2: Lance Hamner is our guest prosecutor here in Johnson County. A lot has changed since the Goldsmith days in Marion County, you know, a lot of 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.
00:03:49
Speaker 4: We do have a whole lot of spill over 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 john Shorty, 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 forty to forty five percent of our jail is full of Marion County as we as we term Marion County criminals that have crossed the line.
00:04:18
Speaker 2: So nearly half of your lock up is from Marion County.
00:04:22
Speaker 4: Yes, imagine if you're a County, several counties over from Marion County.
00:04:26
Speaker 3: You just don't get that.
00:04:27
Speaker 4: You get maybe one or two, three or four, but when we're right up against them, it's almost half.
00:04:33
Speaker 3: Now.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: I believe the Marian County prosecutor would hear your words and say, you use a word like disingenuous when talking about the crime that is crossing over from Marion County like he did with Suefincom and Carmel, like he did with It's like this is a political some sort of political talking point or something like that. Would you point this out? What do you say to something like that when he uses words like disingenuous.
00:05:00
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm only speaking from the actual statistics, and I don't want to go in and and criticize another prosecutor's office. I just know that we are getting that kind of crime spilling over out of Johnson County or out of Marion County into Johnson County, and the numbers they speak for themselves.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he criticized you guys though, I mean, and I get it.
00:05:24
Speaker 2: I get it. You don't want to criticize when you don't have to and stir up some sort of political hornets nest. But at the same time, I remember seeing a billboard in Johnson County that says, in this county you will be arrested, or something similar to that.
00:05:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's we had that billboard and the signal was I couldn't I couldn't even tell you how many times I've had both Marion County law enforcement officers and our own law enforcements enforcement officers when they catch somebody, the first thing out of their mouth is which side of the line am I on? Because they know that they're going to get hammered by our judge as well as our prosecutor here.
00:06:02
Speaker 3: The judges are a big part of this, right huge.
00:06:04
Speaker 4: Yes, that's one of the things that when I was a deputy prosecutor Marion County, I was frustrated lots of times because I wouldn't get the sentence that I thought was even close to appropriate.
00:06:14
Speaker 3: But you know, that's all in the past.
00:06:17
Speaker 4: I'm just saying the judges are obviously a really big part of it. When I was prosecutor here for eighteen years and then left to become a judge, and I always when I ran for judge.
00:06:29
Speaker 3: When I became judge, my goal was to be the.
00:06:31
Speaker 4: Judge that I always wanted to practice in front of not because the state's always right, but because I wanted to be the guy who is going to take the facts and apply it to the law and.
00:06:41
Speaker 3: Do what it takes to protect the public.
00:06:43
Speaker 4: The reason we have a system is to protect the public.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: It's not just to give everybody a job.
00:06:49
Speaker 4: It's to make sure It's the reason we coalesced as a society.
00:06:53
Speaker 3: Clear back from the Stone Age.
00:06:55
Speaker 4: It's to protect people from those marauders among us who won't live in a civilize society.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: I feel like soft on crime prosecutors like Meers in Marion County sometimes try to pretend like they're tough and they use the judges as an excuse as to why they're repeat offenders out in the revolving door or the criminal justice system. Is that always a legitimate excuse.
00:07:19
Speaker 3: I don't think it always is. No.
00:07:21
Speaker 4: I do think that you have to have certain standards and say, our goal for somebody who commits a certain crime is going to be to get this much time on them, and if they don't want to take the plea offer, then they're going to go to trial and they're.
00:07:33
Speaker 3: Going to lose. And that's the signal that.
00:07:36
Speaker 4: Quite honestly, when I became prosecutor the very first time, we brought down a bunch of several young people, young prosecutors like myself from Marion County, and we let them know right off the top, we're going to make an offer and you're going to accept it or you're going to go to trial.
00:07:51
Speaker 3: And they thought, you know, they're a bunch of young kids, are not going to be that good.
00:07:54
Speaker 4: And after they got a whole bunch of convictions, all of a sudden they took us seriously.
00:07:59
Speaker 2: So it's Hamner is our guest.
00:08:01
Speaker 3: He's a prosecutor.
00:08:02
Speaker 2: Here in Johnson County, which covers white Lynn and Greenwood and some other big cities just right south of Marion County. Local elections matter. This kind of goes back to that judges discussion. Not all judges are picked by the public, but there's a lot that are on the ballot, and when you don't show up for local elections, more often than not, bad judges or soft on crime judges get retained.
00:08:28
Speaker 3: Is that a problem.
00:08:29
Speaker 4: I'm glad that you bring that up, because a lot of the how many times have you talked to a voter and they go well, I always vote for president. That probably, at least until recently, doesn't affect them as much as the local elections do. And the fact is the local elections are huge. Your quality of life is going to be determined by how well you're protected at the local level. So it's extremely important. I know it's a long answer to a short question, but it's worth exploring it because it is a huge issue.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Is it worth exploring throwing the book at first time offenders, especially if they're young. Is that a way to tamp down the crime stats in some of these in Marion County for example, like you know again, the soft on crime prosecutor there is that. Well, all you all's the FOP wants to do is lock people up. All they want to do is put them in jail. Well, yeah, I think that's to me. I'm speaking for myself here, mister prosecutor. I'm speaking for myself when I say, yeah, I want to put them in jail. I don't care how young they are, and I don't care if it's their first time or not. Is there something to be said for I don't know, teaching them a lesson.
00:09:43
Speaker 3: In setting precedent. Good question.
00:09:46
Speaker 4: The goals of the criminal justice system are generally considered either four or fivefold. One of them, one of them, and one of the ones that the public generally thinks of most is deterrence.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: And there's two kinds of deterrence.
00:09:57
Speaker 4: Specific deterrence, I commit a crime in trouble, I won't ever do it again because I got spanked hard. And the other one is the other criminals look and see what happened to me, and then they go, why I don't want. I don't want what happened to Lance happened to me, and so those guys are deterred too. I think there is a huge if it's a crime that's serious. I think if you have a victim, there needs to be some kind of hard hit at the very beginning, or all they learn is nothing happens. If they have a series of crimes and nothing happens first, second, or third time, and you finally go, well we'll get we'll get tough on the third or fourth or fifth, you've conditioned them to think that nothing's going to happen. So if you smack them the first time, you do send a signal, both generally and specifically. When I was a judge, if I had somebody with a victim. They're going to serve some jail time. They're going to know every morning when they wake up and look in the mirror, why am I in jail, It's because I did that crime.
00:10:53
Speaker 3: I'm never going to do it again.
00:10:55
Speaker 4: Yes, I think specific deterrence is a major issue.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: Last question here for prosecutor Or Lance Hamner. I know in other big sitties around the country, you see these street takeovers where young folks in their twenties, maybe even younger, go out hijack a street. They're doing donuts, they're burning fires, they're street racing. We see that a little bit in Marion County. How do you prevent that, how.
00:11:19
Speaker 3: Do you stop that? And how would you prosecute that?
00:11:22
Speaker 4: If the police catch them and we have the evidence, they should be prosecuted and they should be asking for jail time and a significant amount of jail time, not just an overnight bailout. I mean when the sent when the judge sentences them, when you make an offer to settle the case, it should include a substantial amount of jail time first time, every time, so that the guys who are not specifically deterred because they haven't been in trouble before. We'll look at what happened to other guys and go wow. Man, even doing it once you're going to get at least a certain amount of time in jail.
00:11:54
Speaker 3: I don't want to do that.
00:11:55
Speaker 4: Yes, I think you hammer them to let them know that it's not going to be.
00:11:59
Speaker 3: Tolerated, not even once.
00:12:01
Speaker 2: Prosecutor Lance Hamner, thank you for welcoming us here to Johnson County.
00:12:05
Speaker 3: We appreciate it. Man, Thank you. We'd like you to come back. Stahammer and Nigel Show, thank you.
