St. Joseph County Prosecutor candidates make their cases to voters

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- For the first time in more than a decade, St Joseph County will have a new county prosecutor. The outgoing Ken Cotter represented the county in legal matters since 2015 but previously announced his retirement. Now, Democrat Amy Cressy and Republican John Maciejczyk are running to take his place.

Amy Cressy is currently a chief deputy prosecutor in St. Joseph County, with a law degree from Indiana University Indianapolis. She tells ABC57 her background revolves around working cases dealing with violent drug traffickers and gangs.

Cressy was appointed by Cotter - now, he's endorsing her to take his place.

She says she hopes to bring fact-based discussions to the public and demand accountability for habitual offenders.

"So, [for] individuals who have severe, serious, violent criminal history. What I want to do is to make sure that each and every case that we review in our office, we review that person's criminal history, the defendant in the case, to see if they qualify for what's called a habitual violator enhancement," says Cressy. "So, I can get up to 20 additional years out of a person's sentence if they qualify. What I want to make it is systemic."

To make that possible, Cressy says she wants to work with the county's digital provider to make it easier to flag habitual criminals.

"I want to make sure that there is a way that we can flag those habitual offenders so that that criminal history is easy to access for not just our community, but every community," says Cressy.

On the GOP side, John Maciejczyk is a public defender, father and Navy veteran, with nearly 30 years of state and federal prosecutorial experience. He has a law degree from Notre Dame.

His experience ranges from drug and gun cases to cyber cases.

Maciejczyk also assisted in prosecuting the January 6th defendants from northern Indiana.

"We currently have a crime problem in South Bend and St. Joe County, and it is I believe because we have soft plea agreements," Maciejczyk says.

He says he's running because of the violent crime rate, saying he hopes to create safe neighborhoods.

Maciejczyk says deputy prosecutors need better training.

"I have experience with the Department of Justice training new attorneys with the Department of Justice at their training center down in South Carolina; which I was invited to do. And I also did the same thing for the National District Attorneys Association training center down in Columbia, South Carolina. One of the things that I have that I have been irritated about with state prosecutors is once they get elected, they don't end up showing up in the courtroom very often, and that's something that I intend to change," says Maciejczyk.

He says he also wants to improve communication with the sheriff's office.