A Jacksonville-based attorney who lives in Winchester has announced his candidacy for Scott County’s States Attorney. Rick Crews, partner in the Thompson-McNeely-Crews law offices here in Jacksonville has officially announced his candidacy for Scott County State’s Attorney. Current State’s Attorney Michael Hill has announced that he will not be seeking re-election for another four year term in 2020. Hill will be leaving to a private practice in Brown County where he and his wife are natives. Hill has served as the State’s Attorney in Scott County since 2008.
Crews announces why he’s seeking the office.
“My wife Laurie and my son Eli and I, we moved to Scott County back in 2011. As many people know I grew up in a small town and I wanted Eli to have that same experience so we moved to Winchester. Originally I went there and I ran for judge and I was unsuccessful. David Cherry beat me in the primary but once we had lived there for a while prior to running, we love the community, we have made a lot of friends down there, we feel very welcomed and we stayed and I still have that desire to represent the people of Scott County. That is why I now want to run for state’s attorney.”
Crews explains why he feels that he’s a good choice for the vacancy.
“I feel it is an opportunity to run. I have been a practicing attorney for 25 years next February, and I want to take my experiences that I have had all this time and help represent the people of Scott County with that.”
Crews details how he will handle the methamphetamine problems in the area.
“You simply have to work with the local law enforcement also with the state police. State police has a task force set up to deal with that and you have to work hand in hand with them, cooperate with them, get local law enforcement to cooperate with them, and also you have to deal with it from the standpoint of you are going to have people who have addiction problems. If there is some way you can work with, via probation or other services that are available to try to get these people the help they need to try to address the problems, but you need to use all the tools that are available to you to try to address these problems.”
Crews said that he will work with private law firms and the Illinois State Police when the record expungement for marijuana offenders comes open at the beginning of the year. Crews also said he wouldn’t be opposed to setting up a Veteran’s Court in the county if it wasn’t cost prohibitive and if there was a need for it. Two other challengers announced their candidacy earlier this week. Bethany Doolin and John Paul Coonrod, both of whom have private practices in Winchester. All three are seeking the Republican nomination.