Court affirms escape conviction for home detention violation

The Indiana Court of Appeals Tuesday affirmed a Class D felony escape conviction for an Indianapolis man arrested after he broke his home detention curfew.

Steven Anderson was arrested in the early morning hours of June 5, 2013, outside his home hours later than allowed under his Marion County Community Corrections agreement. A jury convicted Anderson of escape but cleared him on a Class D felony count of attempted residential entry and Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement.

Judge Melissa May wrote for the court the agreement Anderson signed included a provision that violation of the agreement could result in a charge of escape. She dismissed his argument that when the court allowed evidence of events from the prior night, this was an improper admission of prior bad acts. The prior night, the monitoring company reported Anderson’s bracelet in another residence and other bracelets at his residence.

May wrote that Anderson had waived the argument by not objecting at trial. “We need not address whether fundamental error occurred because there was no error,” she wrote in Steven Anderson v. State of Indiana,  49A02-1309-CR-788.

“Anderson’s actions on June 4 were not evidence of prior bad acts which would prejudice him, but merely part of the 'single transaction' of escape, and therefore the evidence from June 4 was properly admitted to prove an escape that continued into June 5,” she wrote for the court. “… Accordingly, we affirm.”