The Warren County Grand Jury returned 80 more indictments following its second session that took place in July and August, according to Warren County Prosecuting Attorney Hannah Dunakey. 

The jury was first convened in May of this year for one two month session and has since been extended twice and a new jury has now been impaneled for a six-month session that started in September. 

According to Dunakey, 12 of those 80 indictments were felony sex crimes, and another 11 were felony violent crimes, like assault or manslaughter. The remainder of the indictments were centered around drug charges like possession or delivery of controlled substances. 

There were also charges for resisting arrest by fleeing and various property crimes, like burglary or stealing. 

In the earlier session, there was a much heavier focus on more violent crimes, with 43 of 52 indictments centered around violent, or sexually violent crimes. 

Dunakey said that “victim cases” like violent or property crimes will always be a priority for the grand jury, they had worked through a backlog of those cases with the previous session and were able to expand their focus. 

“The first grand jury, the main priority was to get caught up with some of the cases that had not been charged yet or were mischarged, and pending in our office,” said Dunakey. “And the high priority ones were absolutely the sex offenses and very violent crimes.”

Since that backlog had been diminished, she was able to expand the scope of the second session and allow for more cases to be heard by the jury. 

With the expanded scope she said they were able to tailor the grand jury to law enforcement officers and make it more efficient for them as well. 

“Something we did with this grand jury is, if an officer was coming in to testify on a violent case, or a sex offense, then we would also see if he had other cases that were pending in associate court and hadn’t had the probable cause finding yet, and we would have them testify to those cases as well,” said Dunakey. 

This allows for law enforcement officers to spend less time in court and more time doing their jobs. 

“It’s really kind of a two birds, one stone type of situation,” said Dunakey. 

Dunakey also emphasized that while a larger portion of the cases heard in this session were related to drug and property charges, victim cases, especially violent and sexually violent crimes would always be a priority in grand jury proceedings. 

Moving forward, the new, six-month, grand jury has been impaneled and has held its first two sessions in September. Dunakey was pleased to report that the engagement from the 12 jurors and six alternates selected for this session has been very high. 

“Most of the alternates volunteer to come in whether they’re needed or not, and that was something unexpected,” said Dunakey. “We actually saw a very high voluntary participation rate from our alternates.”

She said the jury’s priorities remain the same, although she has another wrinkle she hopes to introduce during this longer session. 

“We’re looking for the community’s voice on what types of things should be charged and which types of cases we should be using resources to pursue,” said Dunakey. 

She wants to shine a light on cases where, although per the letter of the law, a crime may have been committed, charging someone would be a gray area. 

The example she provided was when residue of controlled substances is found on drug paraphernalia. She said that historically, in these cases her office has pursued charges of possession of a controlled substance, a felony, along with the possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. 

She said this was a case she wanted to put in front of citizens to see if they thought it was worthwhile, or if her office should spend more time on more serious charges. 

The current session of this grand jury will meet twice each month until their session concludes in February 2025.