Your Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn is a career prosecutor with 35 years of courtroom experience.  She joined the office in 1987, was appointed Commonwealth’s Attorney in 2016, and in 2018 was elected to a 6-year term.  Red Corn is the first female Commonwealth’s Attorney for Lexington, and as member of the Osage Nation, she is the first Native American to serve as a Commonwealth’s Attorney in Kentucky.  Before becoming a prosecutor, Red Corn was a public defender, and worked briefly in civil practice.

Red Corn has tried more than 230 felony cases to juries, including 55 homicides. She is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, an organization recognized as the preeminent organization of trial lawyers in North America, dedicated to maintaining and improving the standards of trial practice, professionalism, ethics and the administration of justice.  She serves on the 21st Century Advocacy Task Force, established to develop interim guidelines for practitioners during the global pandemic.  Red Corn is a frequent faculty member for the Kentucky Prosecutors Institute, a week-long trial skills course for new Kentucky prosecutors.

Red Corn is a strong advocate for victims, especially child sexual abuse and exploitation victims.  Following her appointment in 2016,  Red Corn established the first special victims’ unit in the office – prosecutors especially trained and experienced in the prosecution of sexual assault,  interpersonal violence, child sexual abuse and exploitation, and elder abuse.  In 2019 she testified before the Kentucky General Assembly about the need for a felony strangulation law in Commonwealth.  The law passed and the Kentucky Gazette’s named Red Corn among the 2019 Notable Women in Kentucky Politics and Government.

Red Corn is the incoming president of the National Children’s Alliance, the organization that accredits the nations’ child advocacy centers, and a current and founding board member of the Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass. She helped establish the Fayette County Child Sexual Abuse Multi-Disciplinary Team in 1989, which has remained a model for other teams statewide.  She also helped write the Kentucky Model Protocol for Child Sexual Abuse Multi-disciplinary teams and the first Kentucky Attorney General’s Child Sexual Abuse Manual (2006).  She serves on the board of directors of the National District Attorneys Association, active on the diversity and inclusion committee, well-being task force, and the women’s law section.

In 2020 Red Corn was awarded Commonwealth’s Attorney of the Year by her peers and is the 2020-21 President for the association.  In  2018 the Kentucky Association of Children’s Advocacy Centers recognized her as one of their Legendary Partners, awarding her the “Hero’s Blue Cape” for her work on behalf of children and with the Children’s Advocacy Center. She is graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law and serves on the college’s Visiting Committee.  Red Corn was the College of Law 2018  Distinguished Alumni of the Year.

Red Corn is an involved member of the Osage Nation. She dances in the annual ceremonial dances, the In-lon-schka, and the recently established Osage Women’s Dance Wak’on Owatsi and the Osage Women’s Conference.

Photograph by Mark Cornelison, Lexington Herald Leader, posted with permission. Photograph by Mark Cornelison, Lexington Herald Leader, posted with permission.

(Above) Red Corn testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Senate Bill 70 Felony Strangulation and speaking to other Osage women about historical trauma for native children (below.)

Red Corn with her aunt and sister during the Wak’on Owatsi, Pawhuska Indian Village.

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Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney's Office • 116 N. Upper St. • Lexington, Kentucky • 40507