Wayne County’s chief deputy coroner claims that he’s been blocked from the county commissioners’ Facebook page, violating his First Amendment rights, and he’s sued to regain his access.
On behalf of Dillon Pitcher, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit against the county and its commissioners Feb. 12 in the U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana. The lawsuit requests the court issue a preliminary injunction that Pitcher must be unblocked from the page and that prohibits future blocking of Pitcher. It also requests “nominal damages” and attorneys’ fees.
Commissioner Jeff Plasterer had no comment about the lawsuit. Ron Cross, the county attorney, said he would inform the county’s insurance company about the lawsuit for it to assign counsel.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held in recent cases that if a government entity uses a social media profile for official business, it may be considered a public forum subject to free speech rights for participants, and that blocking citizen access can in some cases be a violation of those rights.
The lawsuit indicates that Pitcher became aware Jan. 9 that he’d been blocked from seeing the commissioners’ Facebook page and from commenting on posts. His previous comments on the page had been removed. The lawsuit says that Pitcher had previously “publicized information about the unusually high number of deaths that were investigated at the Wayne County Jail in 2025.” Pitcher thinks some county officials opposed release of that information, it says, but is not certain that is the reason he was blocked.
Sheriff Randy Retter said four deaths occurred in the jail last year that were properly reported and investigated by the Indiana State Police. He said none of the deaths involved violence, negligence or jail staff. Retter said jail medical staffing and wellness programming has increased, but despite those efforts, the deaths follow a nationwide trend of increasing deaths inside jails and prisons.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nationwide deaths in prisons increased 12.0% from 2020 to 2024, while deaths in jails increased 56.0%. In Indiana, prison deaths dropped 10.3% during that time period, but jail deaths increased 90.0%.
Pitcher, who also works for the Cambridge City Police Department and is a Hagerstown Town Council member, contacted commissioners in writing Jan. 13 requesting that he and the county coroner’s Facebook page, which was also blocked from the commissioners page, be unblocked, the lawsuit says, but he had not received a response.
A version of this article will appear in the February 25 2026 print edition of the Western Wayne News.