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Some leading Indiana prosecutors say state Rep. Andrew Ireland’s proposal to include circuit court judges and prosecuting attorneys among the state officials who can be impeached represents a misunderstanding of the state’s criminal justice system.
Several prosecuting attorneys with the Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys held a press conference today to strongly oppose the Republican lawmaker’s legislation, while also announcing their 2026 legislative proposals to address violent crime and frequent offenders.
“We stand united in opposition to that (the proposal),” Wabash County Prosecutor Bill Hartley, a Republican, said in an interview with The Indiana Lawyer in advance of Tuesday’s news conference. “We don’t think that that is the appropriate measure.”
Hartley, along with Elkhart County Prosecutor Vicki Becker and Madison County Prosecutor Rodney Cummings (both Republicans), expressed concerns about the public perception being created of prosecutors with the introduction last week of Ireland’s proposed state constitutional amendment contained in House Joint Resolution 1.
Ireland, a practicing labor and employment attorney, has said publicly on social media that his amendment would target “rogue” judges and prosecutors who “refuse to hold violent criminals accountable.” The proposal has even gained the attention of Elon Musk, who said on X that it “has to be done nationwide.”
The two-page resolution would simply add circuit court judges and prosecuting attorneys to the constitutional list of state officers that are eligible to be removed from office by impeachment for “crime, incapacity, or negligence.” What some of those impeachable criteria would entail is not clear in Ireland’s proposal.
Becker said she thinks the legislation is based on a misunderstanding of the many parts of the judicial system, and some fear it could bring politics into prosecutorial decisions.
“When you’re throwing around emotional words like ‘rogue prosecutor’ and painting everyone with the same brush, it just demonstrates that you really don’t understand the complexities of the system,” Becker said.
Becker, who comes from a diverse county of Amish buggies and a multi-billion-dollar RV industry, says part of her role as prosecutor is to make sure she knows those she serves.
“In Elkhart County, we are very serious about being firm but fair,” Becker said. “There are circumstances where maybe the public isn’t going to agree with us, but part of it is because they may not know the rest of the story.”
Cummings said he and some others met with Ireland several weeks ago, trying to “walk him off” the proposal, but Ireland “wasn’t interested,” Cummings added.
“We did try to communicate with him. He just wasn’t interested in hearing anything we had to say,” Cummings said. “He heard us, but it was, it was not a productive meeting.”
Becker views Ireland’s comments as uninformative for the general public because they’re “missing a lot of facts that are pertinent.”
“One of the biggest things that we want to accomplish as prosecutors is making sure we are holding offenders accountable for the right reason at the right time, and we do that by digging deep and looking at not just superficially what’s happening, but really digging in and understanding the offender, the offense and how that impacts public safety,” she said.
Cummings also expressed frustration with the proposal, saying it’s intended to reduce prosecutors’ discretion.
“If we can be impeached because the legislature doesn’t like some decision we made, well, that’s going to cause a chilling effect on us trying to achieve justice,” he said. “It’s nonsense.”
Cummings defended prosecutors and noted the role some judges have played in recent criminal cases, like when Luis Leyba-Gonzalez, a man who took police on a 140 mph police chase, which resulted in the death of three people, was sentenced to two years in prison by Marion County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Harrison—even though the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office asked for 25 years.
Cummings said the sentence is not the prosecutor’s fault.
Ireland, however, has previously cited two other cases that he says demonstrate that Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears, a Democrat, doesn’t do enough to keep violent offenders off the streets.
The Indianapolis Star reported that one involved an IndyGo bus arsonist, Demarcus McCloud, who had a long rap sheet before the arson, and the other concerned Zachary Arnold, who was charged with killing his daughter this year and previously had a violent criminal history.
The prosecutor’s office responded, telling The Star that it had prosecuted nearly a quarter of all criminal trials in the state while maintaining trial conviction rates of 94% for murders, 84% for sex crimes, 83% for attempted murder cases and 88% for gun cases.
Ireland pushed back Tuesday on the prosecutor association’s take.
“It’s telling that the Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys’ top priority today isn’t violent crime or public safety—it’s protecting their own from accountability,” Ireland said. “Right now, the Indiana Constitution holds the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Auditor and Treasurer to an impeachment standard for crime, incapacity or negligence. My proposed amendment simply says that Circuit Judges and Prosecuting Attorneys should be held to that exact same standard.”
“If the association spent half as much energy policing its own members as it does attacking bills they don’t like, we might not be having this conversation,” Ireland added. “My amendment is simple: If you do your job, you have nothing to fear. If you refuse to do your job, you shouldn’t be untouchable.”
Becker and Cummings suggested other solutions for consideration during the 2026 legislative session.
“We want to hold the right offenders accountable for the right reasons and make sure that public safety is the number one priority, so a couple of ways that we can do that has to do with making sure that we have some mandatory minimums,” Becker said.
Mandatory minimum laws would require judges to impose at least the minimum fixed sentence on an offender, with minimum sentences determined based on the offense.
Another potential solution, Becker said, was allowing for preventative detention, or holding an individual in custody without bond—for specific circumstances—before trial.
“We’ve made a lot of progress on that in the last few years, partly because we’ve got some great partners in the General Assembly,” Becker said, “But we see what happens when we let violent offenders out without any kind of accountability or any kind of tether.”
House Joint Resolution 1 has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration.
Before the constitutional amendment could take effect, it would have to be approved by two consecutive general assemblies and ratified by Hoosier voters.
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