Cooperative Agreements Between Prosecutors of Multi-Jurisdictional Areas.

• Author: Lane, Chris
• Position: Kentucky Indiana Prosecuting Alliance

Five counties in Southern Indiana combine with Louisville, Kentucky's eight-county metropolis to create what is commonly referred to as Kentuckiana. The Indiana border is separated from Louisville by the Ohio River, and interstate travel flows freely across the bridge that connects the two states. Tens of thousands of commuters live in one state while working in another, which creates strong economic ties in the industries of real estate, retail, manufacturing, and health care, not to mention the social connections forged between those communities. Of course, wherever an area has a large enough population size and expendable resources to exploit, criminal activity is sure to be present. Although statutes may delineate between jurisdictions, criminals maintain no such restriction. The question we as prosecutors were tasked with answering was how to create a synergetic system that allowed for the most effective prosecution of criminals across multiple jurisdictions. The answer came in the form of the Kentucky Indiana Prosecuting Alliance, better known as KIPA.

In 2018, Indiana's Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson worked with other commonwealth and state attorneys in the region to form the KIPA as a collaborative, goal-oriented system that provides a legal bridge between the Louisville metro area and Southern Indiana. Not only does KIPA bridge the communication gap between jurisdictions, it also makes workable any major differences or slight variations in criminal code between states or localities. The criminals who had been moving back and forth--utilizing geography to their benefit in order to escape accountability--lost much of their ability to maneuver once our jurisdictions combined forces. Thanks to the teamwork of KIPA, justice is being served more effectively and consistently.

The cornerstone of KIPA is communication. The reciprocal, unfettered flow of information, especially when it comes to carrying out justice across multi jurisdictional areas, is of the utmost importance. One key issue KIPA had to take into consideration was the fact that the State of Indiana and the Commonwealth of Kentucky have different programs for keeping and maintaining court documents. Indiana uses a system called Odyssey, while Kentucky uses one named Courtnet. Under KIPA, a new method of pertinent document sharing was developed in order to transcend the differences between those two programs. With the goal of sharing information on court cases and...