On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 55A01-1208-CR-391 RUCKER, Justice. In this case we examine whether a laboratory technician involved in the chain of custody of DNA evidence must testify at trial in order to satisfy the demands of a defendant's Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. We conclude the Constitution does not so require. Facts and Procedural History During the evening hours of October 25, 2010 a gun store in downtown Martinsville was burglarized. The...
On Direct Appeal Pursuant to Indiana Appellate Rule 4(A)(1)(a) RUCKER, Justice. The State charged Tyrice J. Halliburton with murder and alleged he was a habitual offender. The State also sought life imprisonment without parole. After a trial by jury Halliburton was found guilty as charged and the jury recommended life imprisonment. Following this recommendation, the trial court sentenced Halliburton accordingly. He now appeals contending the trial court erred in admitting certain evidence and...
On Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 93A02-1112-EX-1141 DICKSON, Chief Justice. This is an appeal from an order of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission ("the IURC") approving a contract for the purchase of substitute natural gas ("SNG") and directing the procedure for resolving future related disputes. After the Court of Appeals voided the contract because a definitional term deviated from the required statutory definition, the contracting parties amended the contract to...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-1205-CR-380 DAVID, Justice. Just because an individual refuses to comply with a police officer's order does not necessarily subject that individual to criminal liability under Indiana's resisting law enforcement statute. The individual must "forcibly" resist the officer's lawful execution of his or her duties. But in this case the defendant refused repeated orders to lay down on the ground and advanced aggressively, with his...
On Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 82A01-1109-CT-432. DICKSON, Chief Justice. In this action for damages, the plaintiffs (parents J.D. and M.D., individually and on behalf of their children, F.D., G.D., and T.D.) allege mishandling of child abuse reports by the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS), the Evansville Police Department (EPD), and the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office (VCPO). The trial court granted summary judgment to all defendants on grounds of...
MASSA, Justice. Danielle Kelly here appeals the denial of her motion to suppress evidence found in a search of her vehicle and inculpatory statements she made to police. We reverse. Facts and Procedural History On September 15, 2010, Sergeant Michael Fuller of the Fortville Police Department received a phone call from dispatch to inform him that Ms. Carolyn Goodwin wished to speak with him. After talking to Goodwin on the phone, Sergeant Fuller went to Goodwin's home, and she told him...
DAVID, Justice. Today we examine the bounds of acceptable police procedure in attempting to interdict interstate narcotics shipments under the Indiana Constitution, and also elaborate on the application of Indiana's Rules of Criminal Procedure providing for a speedy trial. In this case, a truck driver was arrested after a deliberate operation conducted by the Indiana State Police uncovered a large quantity of cocaine in the truck driver's cargo. He requested a speedy trial, and when the...
DAVID, Justice. In this case, the defendant claims that the trial court should have given his tendered jury instruction on self-defense; however, his tendered instruction would have incorrectly limited the jury's consideration to his subjective belief without assessing its reasonableness. Further, the defendant alleges that the trial court erred by not completely bifurcating the trial on his Serious Violent Felon ("SVF") charge from the trial on his murder charge. Finding that the trial court...
DAVID, Justice. In this case the defendant alleges that the trial court improperly instructed the jury regarding his claim that he was acting in defense of another. The defendant argues that the Court of Appeals misinterpreted our precedent in this area. Finding that the trial court did not err in its final instructions when it used the existing Indiana Pattern Jury Instruction on defense of another, we affirm the defendant's conviction but remand the case to the trial court to correct an...
On Petition For Rehearing PER CURIAM. Bowen's sentencing order did not identify the reasons for the consecutive sentences that were imposed. We rejected the argument in Bowen's transfer petition that concurrent sentences were required, but we sustained his argument that a new sentencing order was and we remanded the case with instructions for preparation of a new sentencing order "without a hearing." Bowen v. State, 988 N.E.2d 1134 (Ind.2013). Bowen's rehearing petition notes that the...
RUSH, Justice. An auto dealership's advertisement of an inexpensive used car as a "Sporty Car at a Great Value Price," is textbook puffery—not actionable as deception or fraud, because a reasonable buyer could not take it as a warranty about the car's performance or safety characteristics. But when the dealer has inspected the car and should know it has serious problems, answering a buyer's question about why it idled roughly by claiming that it "would just need a tune-up" may be actionable...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 03A04-1112-CC-639 DAVID, Justice. Before a parcel of real property can be sold at a tax sale, the Indiana Code requires the county auditor to mail notice of the pending sale to any mortgagee holding a mortgage on the property — provided, however, that the mortgagee has first affirmatively requested such notice by submitting a form to the auditor. Is such a procedure permissible under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth...
DAVID, Justice. When two police officers encountered three men in a self-storage facility and ordered them to the ground, the men were protected by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. When those protections were violated, the evidence obtained as a result was tainted and should have been suppressed at a subsequent trial of one of the men. Because that evidence was instead admitted after the violation of the man's federal constitutional rights, we must now reverse his...
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 33A01-1202-PC-72 RUCKER, Justice. Andrew McWhorter appealed the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief arguing trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance for failing to object to a flawed voluntary manslaughter jury instruction. On review the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the post-conviction court and remanded this cause for retrial on reckless homicide only. On transfer, we also reverse the judgment...
RUCKER, Justice. We hold that the "actual evidence" test announced in Richardson v. State, 717 N.E.2d 32 (Ind.1999) is applicable to cases in which there has been an acquittal on one charge and retrial on another charge after a hung jury. We conclude however that the post-conviction court properly denied the petitioner's claim that counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to pursue this issue at trial or on direct appeal. Facts and Procedural History Factual Background This...
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A04-1011-CT-704 RUCKER, Justice. In this negligence case we address the application of Indiana's Comparative Fault Act to the issue of fault allocation in a specific context: that in which a premises owner has a duty to protect a business invitee from the foreseeable criminal act of a third party. Facts and Procedural History On October 16, 2005, plaintiff James Santelli was robbed and murdered inside his room in an...
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A05-1204-CR-196. RUCKER, Justice. Although a defendant who pleads guilty to driving while suspended as a habitual traffic violator may not later challenge the plea contending that an underlying offense has been set aside on grounds of procedural error, a defendant may be entitled to relief where an underlying offense has been set aside on grounds of material error. Facts and Procedural History In January 1994, the Indiana...
RUSH, Justice. Criminal cases are prosecuted in the name of the "State of Indiana." But as Shakespeare famously asked, "What's in a name that which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet." 1 Gertrude Stein's answer was that "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." 2 Similarly, we conclude that in this matter related to the sex offender registry, "the State is the State," whether it acts through a deputy prosecutor or through the Department of Correction. Both entities share the...
RUSH, Justice. The foster parents of C.B.M. and C.R.M. adopted them while their natural mother's termination of parental rights (TPR) appeal was still pending. Our statutes specifically allow those competing processes to overlap. But choosing to do so creates the devastating possibility of jeopardizing a finalized adoption if the underlying TPR judgment is later reversed on appeal. That is exactly what happened here, and we cannot unscramble that egg. 1 Either the adoptive family prevails in...
DICKSON, Chief Justice. In this medical malpractice action the plaintiffs, Mary Alice Manley and Gary Manley, appeal from a grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants, Dr. Ryan Sherer and Sherer Family Medicine, P.C. We reverse. On November 27, 2006, Mary Manley was involved in a head-on automobile collision with Kimberly Zehr. At the scene of the accident, Ms. Manley overheard Ms. Zehr say that "she should not be driving because of her medical condition." Appellants' App'x. at 24....
