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Rockbridge County and Lexington Commonwealth’s Attorney Jared Moon has been practicing law in Virginia for 17 years with most of that time being spent in the role he feels is his calling.
“I’m a prosecutor. That’s what I am,” he told The News-Gazette. “After the title of Disciple of Christ, Father, and Husband, the title of Prosecutor is the single- most defining thing about me. I have a passion for what I do and why I do it. I absolutely love being a prosecutor. I fell in love with it immediately when I came out of law school and I found that I can be quite good at it.”
Moon has been serving in the county and Lexington commonwealth’s attorney’s office since 2015, serving as chief deputy under Christopher Bilius until Bilius was elevated to the bench of Rockbridge County General District Court in 2019. Moon stepped into the role of commonwealth’s attorney until the election that fall, in which he ran unopposed. He is running for reelection to the office this year and is again unopposed. Prior to coming to Rockbridge County, Moon earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Utah University and a law degree from the University of Richmond. After graduating from law school, he worked as a prosecutor for the Danville commonwealth’s attorney’s office.
In the years since he was first elected, the local commonwealth’s attorney’s office has nearly doubled in size, growing from three attorneys and three staff members to five attorneys and five staff members. Moon has also worked to make sure that the victims of the crimes his office prosecutes feel heard.
“I have done my best to try to make this office a victim-minded office where we take the thoughts and considerations of our victims into account,” he said. “Their thoughts and feelings carry great weight in any decision we make. The ultimate decision resides with this office, but we will take [victim’s] thoughts and feelings into great, great consideration.”
Working with and getting to know the victims of the crimes he and his fellow attorneys are prosecuting is one of the aspects to being a prosecutor that Moon says he has found most rewarding over the years.
“I love working with victims of crime,” he said. “It’s quite an experience from start to finish, from when the case first comes across our desk to when we meet with the victims for the first time – I’m the kind of prosecutor that tries to meet as often with the victims as I can – and preparing them for court and preparing them for the experience in general, and helping them through the terrible consequences of someone else’s actions.”
In the past five years, Moon has prosecuted four murder cases and a number of sex crimes, most of them against children. The most common type of cases that come through his office is drug cases, usually methamphetamine-related.
“We do our best to come down hard on those who sell or distribute methamphetamine, or any drug to be quite frank,” he said. “In the past four years, we’ve had several cases where people have received quite a substantial amount of time for distributing methamphetamine.
“Generally speaking, Rockbridge County and the city of Lexington are law-abiding communities,” he added. “We have our issues, and drugs is certainly a number one issue, but overall we live in a good, peaceful community of law-abiding citizens who want to do the best to make our community better, and that’s one of the things I like about this area.”
