Update
With Tony Katz on WIBC: “We need an actual prosecutor”
Philip joins Tony Katz on 93.1 WIBC to talk about the power an elected prosecutor holds, a child sexual abuse case where Ryan Mears’s office did not require prison time, juvenile crime as a five-alarm fire, and why Marion County needs a prosecutor rather than a mayoral candidate.
Tony Katz asked Philip whether the prosecutor's office has failed to keep Indianapolis safe. His answer: it has. For about seven years Marion County has been in an ideological experiment with a soft-on-crime prosecutor, and people are fed up with what amounts to a defense attorney in prosecutor's clothing.
Philip has served in that office under Democrats and Republicans, including Ryan Mears. If Mears were following in Terry Curry's footsteps and the basic mission of the job, enforcing the law, seeking justice for victims and protecting the public, Philip said he would not be upending his life to run against him.
"The prosecutor makes decisions, a hundred different decisions in a case."
Judges matter, Philip said, but the elected prosecutor is the 800-pound gorilla. What to charge, how hard to push back on bond, how to prepare witnesses for trial, how to handle probation violations: each decision either benefits the defendant or looks out for victims and the public. Under Mears, those decisions make it easier for lenient judges to make bad calls rather than harder.
He pointed to a case in which a teacher purchased hundreds of images that a seasoned IMPD detective described as some of the worst child sexual abuse material. Mears's office did not require prison time in the plea agreement. The judge, sentencing him to probation, noted that the office had not asked for prison. When the press reported the sentence, the office let the public believe it had argued for prison time when it had not.
On juvenile crime, Philip called it a five-alarm fire. What teenagers are doing today is the best indicator of where the city will be in four years, and the progression is clear: auto thefts that were not taken seriously, then carjackings, high-speed chases and shootouts with police, and teenagers killing and being killed. The young people who know the juvenile system best have no fear of or respect for its consequences.
His pitch to Marion County: we need an actual prosecutor, and what we have is someone running for mayor who is willing to burn down the office's credibility and integrity along the way. Philip will be a prosecutor who does not coddle criminals and who cares more about victims, justice and enforcing the law.
The full interview is above. Election Day is November 3.