Lake County, Indiana

How a case moves here

Lake County follows Indiana law on arrests, release, and courts. These rules are the same in every county in the state; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.

Who decides release first: For misdemeanors and lower felonies, the jail usually releases people on the county court's bail schedule as soon as they are booked. For serious felonies, a judge, magistrate, or commissioner sets bail at the initial hearing. Since July 2025, a person arrested for a crime of violence can't be released on a schedule and gets a bail hearing in open court.
Indiana Office of Court Services, Legislative Update on SB 324 (2025), adding IC 35-33-8-3.4 Marion Superior Court bail schedule
Time to see a judge: A person arrested without a warrant must be taken promptly before a judicial officer for an initial hearing. The general law sets no number of hours, but since 2025 a person arrested for a crime of violence must get a bail hearing within 48 hours unless exigent circumstances prevent it.
IC 35-33-7-1 (2016 text)Indiana Office of Court Services, Legislative Update on SB 324 (2025)
Money bail: Indiana courts may set money bail. A court rule says a person who is not a substantial flight risk or danger should be released without money bail, except people charged with murder or treason or already on pretrial release, probation, or parole.
Ind. Crim. Rule 2.6
Courts: Circuit and superior courts in each county try felonies and also hear misdemeanors. Some cities and towns have a city or town court that hears misdemeanors, ordinance violations, and infractions.
Indiana Judicial Branch, Structure of Indiana courts Indiana Judicial Branch, About the courts
Judges and magistrates: Trial judges serve six-year terms. In most counties voters elect them. In Allen, Lake, Marion, and St. Joseph counties, the governor appoints from a local commission's finalists and the judge later runs for retention. Magistrates are appointed by the judges and must be lawyers, and city and town court judges must be lawyers too.
Indiana Judicial Branch, Judicial selection IC 33-23-5-2 (2016 text)Indiana State Board of Accounts, Court Manual ch. 4 (citing IC 33-35-5-7)

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Some of this is medium confidence and still being checked. iga.in.gov would not render from here, so statute text came from 2016 copies on Justia's file host and from official court pages. The one two-county prosecutor circuit (Dearborn and Ohio) is from general knowledge. IC 33-35-5-7.5 has an exception to the lawyer rule for city and town judges that was not read. Commissioner qualifications not confirmed. The family-violence 24-hour hold in IC 35-33-8-6.5 was not re-read.

What this county does differently

Pretrial practice

Mapping Pretrial Injustice listed its risk tool in 2021 as the Ohio Risk Assessment System Pretrial Assessment Tool (ORAS-PAT).

MediaJustice and Movement Alliance Project, Mapping Pretrial Injustice county map (data as of fall 2021)

From Mapping Pretrial Injustice, a map compiled by MediaJustice and the Movement Alliance Project, advocacy groups that campaign against pretrial risk assessment tools. Its data is from fall 2021; CrimeDB uses it only where no court, government, or research list covers the county.

Police agencies

Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29. An agency that serves several counties appears on each. Population served is the FBI's figure.

Crime and arrests

No figures yet

Reported offenses and arrests for Lake County, counted by the agencies that serve it, appear here once the county series is published. NIBRS reporting here started as early as December 2018.