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St. Joseph County elects a new sheriff and prosecutor

four women holding red signs that read Elect Davis for prosecutor
Photo courtesy of Deborah Davis campaign
Deborah Davis (far right) stands with family and friends. She won the Republican nomination for St. Joseph County prosecutor in Tuesday's election.

Deborah Davis beat the boss who fired her, incumbent David Marvin, in the race for prosecutor. Voters elected Chad Spence to replace Mark Lillywhite as county sheriff.

An attorney who was fired from the St. Joseph County prosecutor’s office this year was elected to her boss’s position in Tuesday’s primary.

Republican Deborah Davis bested her former boss, and another former county prosecutor, in her bid for that position. Davis worked for the current prosecutor, David Marvin. But Marvin fired Davis earlier this year, accusing her of making false statements under oath. Davis says her termination was unjust and points out that she has not been formally reprimanded or sanctioned.

“I think the people can see what happened and that it wasn’t right, the way I was treated and the way I was terminated,” said Davis. “I’m looking forward to getting past that and getting the cases moving again.”

Former county prosecutor John McDonough also ran against Davis. McDonough was arrested for drunk driving in 2020.

In another race, Republican Chad Spence received nearly 50 percent of the vote to become sheriff. Spence will replace Mark Lillywhite, who was arrested in 2023 after crashing his car in a drunk driving incident. Spence worked with Lillywhite and said he did many positive things in his career, but it’s time for a change.

“I pray for him and his family every day. I want what’s best for him,” he said. “It is time for our county to move forward and see something different that we haven’t seen in a long time. We’re bringing a lot of positive change and that’s what the county wants.”

There is no Democratic challenger in November for either the St. Joseph County prosecutor or sheriff races.

Corrected: August 8, 2024 at 5:45 PM EDT
The original audio file attached to this story contained an error and was removed. The error incorrectly reported when Deborah Davis was fired from the St. Joseph County Prosecutor's Office. She was fired in 2024. The audio file has now been corrected and added to this post.