Spencer County Courts

This page is about Spencer County, Indiana, whose county seat is Rockport. Spencer County, Kentucky is a different county in a different state with its own courts, so if your paperwork names a Kentucky court, nothing here applies to it.

Spencer County has one trial court, the Spencer Circuit Court, at 200 Main Street in Rockport. There is no Superior Court here and no city or town court, so a state felony, misdemeanor or OWI charged in this county is heard there. The exception is a federal charge, which runs through the federal court instead.

One court, and what happened to Rockport City Court

Rockport once had a city court, and it no longer exists. Indiana’s Administrative Rule 8, which sets the format of case numbers for the state’s trial courts, lists the “Spencer/Rockport City Court” as abolished. The county’s own Clerk puts today’s position in one line: “Spencer County has one circuit court.”

The same rule tells you what to look for on your paperwork. A case in this court carries a number beginning 74C01: 74 is the county code for Spencer, and C01 is the Circuit Court. Public, non-confidential cases can be searched at no cost on MyCase, the state’s online case system. Not every document is online, older cases may not have them, and MyCase warns that what it shows is not an official court record. Official records come from the court itself.

200 Main Street is the courthouse; 223 Main Street is our office

The Spencer County courthouse is at 200 Main Street, Rockport, IN 47635, and the county lists the Clerk’s office at the same street address.

The firm’s principal office is at 223 Main Street, on the same street, in a different building. The two numbers are close enough to confuse. If your paperwork tells you to appear in court, 200 Main Street is where the judge expects you. If you are coming to meet with Jerry Garner, you want 223.

The Spencer County Jail

The Spencer County Jail is in the Spencer County Law Enforcement Center at 120 N 2nd Street, Rockport, IN 47635, in downtown Rockport. The sheriff’s office is in the same building.

The county’s corrections page says a person booked into the jail is allowed one phone call in the booking office unless otherwise necessary. Calls after that are made from the cell areas and charged to the person being called. If you are the one who gets that first call, write down what you are told and call a lawyer the same day.

Whether bail is available, and on what terms, is decided by the judge under Indiana Code chapter 35-33-8. When a judge sets an amount, the statute points to facts such as how long you have lived in the community, your work history, your family ties, your record, whether you have missed court before, and how serious the charge is. Those are facts a family can help gather before the hearing.

Two certified problem-solving courts

The state’s directory of problem-solving courts lists two for Spencer County, both under the Spencer Circuit Court: an Adult Drug Court and a Family Recovery Court. Whether either is open to you depends on your case. The time to ask is before a plea is on the table.

Your initial hearing, and the two things to know about it

The first thing that happens in court is the initial hearing, and two sources control it: Indiana Code chapter 35-33-7 and Criminal Rule 2.3. The court must advise you of your constitutional rights and of the deadlines in the statute, and it must enter a preliminary plea of not guilty unless you enter a different plea. That preliminary plea turns into a formal plea of not guilty 20 days after the hearing ends, or 10 days after if you are charged only with misdemeanors, unless you enter a different plea first.

How soon the hearing comes depends on how the arrest happened. A person arrested without a warrant must be taken promptly before a judicial officer. If you make bail first, the hearing can fall any time within 20 calendar days after the arrest, or within 10 calendar days if the arrest was under IC 9-30-5, Indiana’s OWI chapter. If you were arrested on a warrant and released on the warrant’s own terms, it falls within 20 days after the arrest. If you were arrested before a charge was filed and the prosecutor says more time is needed to decide whether to file one, the court recesses or continues the hearing for up to 72 hours, not counting weekends and legal holidays.

The first thing to know is the deadline to hire a lawyer. The court must tell you that if you intend to hire one, you must do it within 20 days after the hearing if you are charged with a felony, or 10 days if you are charged only with misdemeanors. The statute gives its own reason: motions and defenses have deadlines too, and what is not raised in time is waived.

The second is what cannot happen while you have no lawyer. Under Criminal Rule 2.3(C), if you are unrepresented and have not waived your right to counsel, the State must not engage in plea negotiations or diversion agreements, and the court must not accept a guilty plea. If you feel pressed to settle things that morning, remember that rule.

After the hearing, the evidence starts to move. Under Criminal Rule 2.5 the two sides are expected to share information without involving the court, and in the ordinary case no written motion is needed. The State must disclose the items and information the rule lists, along with anything in its possession or control that tends to negate guilt or would tend to reduce the punishment. The defense has disclosure duties of its own, which is one more reason to have a lawyer in place early.

Courthouse rules: screening, phones and dress

Spencer County’s local rule on courthouse conduct, LR74-AR00-3, is short and worth reading before you go.

Everyone entering the courthouse, apart from people the judges have exempted, passes through a magnetometer and x-ray screening point and must comply with reasonable requests from courthouse security. Purses, bags and backpacks can be searched, so build that into your arrival time. No firearms, knives or other deadly weapons are allowed in or around the courthouse without the prior written authorization of the Judge of the Circuit Court. Leave the pocketknife at home.

Your phone is allowed, and so are tablets, laptops and watches, as long as each one is turned off or on vibrate before you enter a courtroom and none is used to record. Recording and taking photographs are prohibited in the courtroom, the areas right next to it and the court offices unless a written court order allows it. Breaking the weapon or device rules can mean losing the item on the spot or being removed, even if your case has not been called yet, and the court can start contempt proceedings if it decides that is warranted.

Everyone who enters a courtroom should be appropriately dressed. The rule gives no list, so keep it plain and neat. Food and drinks stay out of the courtroom unless the court approves them, gum is not allowed in the courtrooms, and smoking, vaping and chewing tobacco are not allowed anywhere in the courthouse.

If the judge changes

When a change of judge is granted in a felony or misdemeanor case, or another judge has to be assigned, the local rule (LR74-CR00-1) assigns the case from a list of judges who have agreed to serve, in consecutive order: the judges of Warrick Superior Court No. 2, Dubois Circuit Court, Dubois Superior Court, Warrick Circuit Court, Perry Circuit Court and Warrick Superior Court No. 1. We give the offices and no names because the people holding them change. So the judge on a Spencer County case can come from another county’s bench, including the Warrick County courts.

The list has two limits. A conflict arising from earlier service as a prosecutor follows a separate path in the same rule. And where no judge is eligible, or the circumstances of a case call for it, the case is certified to the Indiana Supreme Court to select a special judge.

If you cannot afford a lawyer

You can ask the court to assign one. Under Indiana Code 35-33-7-6, before the initial hearing ends the judicial officer must decide whether a person who asks for assigned counsel is indigent, and must assign counsel to a person found indigent. The Indiana Commission on Court Appointed Attorneys lists Spencer County as in compliance with its standards from 1999 to the present.

How Jerry L. Garner works this court

Rockport is the firm’s home. The principal office is at 223 Main Street, and the second office is at 123 NW 4th Street, Suite 521, in downtown Evansville. If you are looking for a criminal defense lawyer in Rockport or anywhere else in Spencer County, this is the court a state charge will take you to.

Jerry L. Garner is a retired FBI Special Agent with over 36 years of legal experience. His 23 years as an FBI Special Agent taught him how an investigative file gets built, which is useful when the job is finding what it leaves out. Take the probable-cause affidavit, the sworn statement behind an arrest made without a warrant. Indiana requires the person swearing to it to disclose any known personal, financial or familial relationship with a party to the investigation, or with anyone else involved in the offense, if that relationship could reasonably be perceived to affect their objectivity or impartiality. Details like that one are easy to pass over and worth checking.

From the same office, the firm also takes Perry County cases in Tell City. Perry shares Judicial District 25 with Spencer, but that grouping is administrative: where the alleged offense happened decides which county’s court hears the case.

If you have a date at 200 Main Street, or someone you care about has just been booked at the jail on 2nd Street, call (812) 301-6221. The first consultation is free.