On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 41A04-1308-AD-388 DAVID , Justice . For the first forty-five months of her life, B.C.H. remained in the primary care, custody, and control of her maternal grandparents T.H. and C.H. ("Grandparents"). Unmarried at the time of B.C.H.'s birth, her mother R.H. ("Mother") would visit her daughter about once a week. Later, Mother began keeping B.C.H. at her apartment one day and night per week, and when Mother married K.J. ("...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-1304-CR-00386 DAVID , Justice . Rodregus Morgan was convicted under Indiana's public intoxication statute for being intoxicated in a public place and engaging in annoying conduct. Morgan challenges his conviction on two possible grounds. First, that the Indiana public intoxication statute is unconstitutionally vague. Second, that there was insufficient evidence for his conviction. Facts and Procedural History On August...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-1304-CR-365 MASSA , Justice . Shawn Blount appeals his conviction for being a serious violent felon in possession of a firearm, arguing (1) the trial court erred by admitting a detective's testimony that a witness identified Blount as the suspect, and (2) he was prejudiced by a material variance between the allegations against him and the proof used to convict him. We are asked to decide whether the detective's testimony...
DAVID , Justice . William Parks was convicted of Class A felony dealing in methamphetamine and received an aggregate sentence of forty (40) years. Parks now asks this Court to evaluate the appropriateness of that sentence in light of the nature of the offense and his character under Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B). Reaffirming our authority and our reluctance to grant such a request, in this case our collective judgment has determined that a sentence revision is warranted. Facts and Procedural...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 08A02-1303-MI-220 DICKSON, Justice . The facts in this case parallel those of Twin Lakes v. Ray, 08S04-1402-MI-97, ___ N.E.3d ___, 2014 WL 6843641 (Ind. 2014), which we contemporaneously issue today. In both cases, the same trial court granted landowners' requests to remove their properties from the list of properties subject to tax sale, and Twin Lakes Regional Sewer District appealed, challenging the trial court's...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 45A03-1308-AD-310 RUSH , Chief Justice . Local rules cannot confer, revoke, or override subject matter jurisdiction, but they may properly prescribe venue — the particular location among courts that have jurisdiction for cases to be heard. Here, the Lake Superior Court has four divisions, "civil (including probate), criminal, county, and juvenile," Ind.Code 33-33-45-3, -21(a) (2008), none of which is a "separate probate...
DICKSON , Justice . After two landowners, delinquent in paying fees and penalties owed to a regional sewer district, successfully petitioned the Carroll County Circuit Court to remove their properties from the list of properties subject to a tax sale, the lienholder sewer district appealed, challenging the trial court's interpretation of Indiana Code section 13-26-14-4. We hold that the statute does not apply to prohibit a tax sale of these properties. Twin Lakes Regional Sewer District is...
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A04-1206-PL-326 RUCKER, Justice. In another opinion decided today we held that a petitioner seeking judicial review of an agency decision must file the agency record as defined by the Administrative Orders and Procedures Act and that the failure to do so results in dismissal of the petition. See Teaching Our Posterity Success, Inc., v. Ind. Dept. of Educ., ___ N.E.3d ___, No. 49S05-1411-PL-700, 2014 WL 5896107 (Ind. Nov. 13,...
RUCKER, Justice. Resolving a long-standing lack of consensus on the subject, today we hold that a petitioner seeking judicial review of an agency action must file with the trial court the agency record as defined by the Administrative Orders and Procedures Act. Failure to do so results in dismissal of the petition. Facts and Procedural History In 2011 the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Board of Education (collectively "DOE") approved Teaching Our Posterity Success, Inc....
RUSH, Chief Justice. The severity of a methamphetamine manufacturing offense depends on the weight of "pure or adulterated" drug the defendant manufactures. But the term "adulterated" is ambiguous in the context of the manufacturing process, which has led to divergent interpretations of how to define, and consequently how to weigh, "adulterated" methamphetamine. We construe "adulterated" methamphetamine as a final product, not the total weight of an intermediate mixture still undergoing...
DICKSON, Justice. This is a direct appeal from a trial court judgment declaring that two provisions of the Indiana Right to Work Law, Indiana Code sections 22-6-6-8 and 22-6-6-10, violate Article 1, Section 21 of the Indiana Constitution. The plaintiffs, Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, AFL-CIO — an exclusive-agency union — and several of its members and officers (collectively the "Union"), filed a complaint against the Attorney General of Indiana and the...
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-1211-PC-900 RUCKER, Justice. From time to time a case is presented to us that neither implicates this Court's law-giving function, nor involves compelling issues of great public interest. This is such a case. But we elect to address the merits under the general heading of "doing substantial justice." Here, despite a pro se petitioner's best efforts, his attempt to appeal the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 89A04-1204-PL-159 MASSA, Justice. The parents of a child who choked to death during lunchtime in a high school cafeteria sued the school and several administrators. The trial court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment. We reverse. Facts and Procedural History 1 Megan Lyons, a seventeen-year-old Richmond High School student with Down Syndrome, was severely disabled. She had difficulty eating and sometimes failed to...
RUSH, Chief Justice. Under Indiana's "exhaustion rule," parties may seek appellate review of for-cause challenges to prospective jurors only if they have exhausted their peremptory challenges. But what if they use their last peremptory challenge for its traditional purpose of striking a candidate they consider undesirable, instead of using it to cure the trial court's refusal to strike an allegedly incompetent one for cause The State argues that doing so violates the exhaustion rule, thus...
MASSA, Justice. Jonathan Carpenter appeals the admission of evidence recovered from his home after officers entered it without a warrant in pursuit of an aggressive and bloody dog. We are asked to decide whether that entry was reasonable. Because we find it was not, we hold that the search violated Article 1, Section 11 of our Indiana Constitution and thus we reverse the trial court. Facts and Procedural History On a summer afternoon, police responded to a report of dogs fighting in...
MASSA, Justice. When Patricia Sanchez was fired from her job at the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, she kept several items of state property in her possession. She was charged with theft, but those charges were dismissed. The State initiated an ethics proceeding against her, determined her conduct ran afoul of an administrative rule, and barred her from future State executive branch employment. We are asked to review that adjudication and sanction. Because we find the proceeding...
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 45A03-1309-CT-385 RUSH, Chief Justice. Even when a plaintiff proves a predicate crime under the Crime Victims Relief Act (CVRA), the trial court has discretion not to award exemplary damages when it thinks the conduct is not egregious enough to warrant punishment. And when a plaintiff pleads several alternative grounds for relief, the trial court has similar discretion not to impose CVRA liability at all, even when it awards...
MASSA, Justice. This case presents the issue of whether the certificates of death that doctors, coroners, and funeral directors file with county health departments pursuant to Indiana Code chapter 16-37-3 are public records that a county health department must provide public access to under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act. We believe they are, and therefore we reverse the trial court. Facts and Procedural History A. The Creation of Indiana's Death Record System In 1881, preventable...
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 75A03-1209-CR-402 PER CURIAM. This interlocutory appeal challenges the trial court's refusal to dismiss charges of attempted child seduction. We affirm the trial court. The allegations are that Robert Corbin, a teacher and coach, communicated via an internet site (Facebook.com) with a sixteen-year-old student; on one day, he asked the student to "take care of his" sexual arousal and sneak out of the house after the adults were...
Per Curiam. This interlocutory appeal challenges the trial court's refusal to dismiss charges of attempted child seduction. We affirm the trial court. The allegations are that Robert Corbin, a teacher and coach, communicated via an internet site (Facebook.com) with a sixteen-year-old student; on one day, he asked the student to "take care of" his sexual arousal and sneak out of the house after the adults were asleep so Corbin could drive over and pick up the student, and the next day, Corbin...
