The Greene County Attorney’s Office deals with several criminal cases throughout the course of a year and a majority aren’t allowed to go to a jury trial.

Greene County Attorney Thomas Laehn tells Raccoon Valley Radio that since the county is allotted ten jury trial dates per year, most of the 150-200 average criminal cases annually must be done through a plea agreement. However, he notes that he has significant discretion of which of those cases are tried by a jury as he explains his philosophy behind how he makes those decisions.

“Much of my job consists of finding plea agreements that serve the interest of justice, holds people accountable for their crimes, that ensures that victims get restitution, without squandering my ten trial dates.” 

Laehn points out that following a plea agreement, it is the judge who ultimately decides what the sentencing or the punishment will be. He explains that oftentimes there is a joint recommendation from his office and the defense attorney on what the sentence should be.

“And in those cases, I think judges almost always go along with a joint recommendation from the parties. They don’t have to, they are not bound by that joint recommendation, but a lot of our cases we do have joint sentencing recommendations. But then if you take contested sentencing hearings, where the parties are making different recommendations, then no, I think that the sentences often are more lenient than what I’m recommending.”     

Laehn adds that he has been disappointed by some of the sentences that the judge selects that he believes is not proportionate to the crime.