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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA woman who attempted to shoplift from an Indianapolis K-Mart was not subject to double jeopardy when she was convicted of resisting law enforcement and disorderly conduct. She argued the court could have based the convictions on identical facts.
Courtney Glenn was stopped as she tried to steal shirts from the store. While police officer Gary Smith escorted her from the store, she was uncooperative, attempted to pull free and was able to slip a hand out of the handcuffs. She swung the handcuffed hand at the officer, missing striking him with the handcuff by a few inches.
She was ultimately convicted of one count of Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement and one count of Class B misdemeanor disorderly conduct at a bench trial.
In Courtney Glenn v. State of Indiana, 49A04-1302-CR-79, the appellate court found sufficient evidence to support both convictions, finding Glenn’s actions to be similar to those of the defendant in Johnson v. State, 833 N.E.2d 516 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005), who was convicted of resisting law enforcement. Glenn aggressively tried to pull away from the officer and refused to walk. This resistance was forcible and supports her resisting conviction.
Glenn argued that she did not try to strike the officer with her handcuffed hand, but merely was trying to show him that the handcuff had malfunctioned. But when the evidence conflicts, the appellate court must view only evidence that is favorable to the verdict, in which a reasonable fact-finder could conclude Glenn swung at the officer and could have caused serious bodily injury.
The judges also rejected Glenn’s claim that the trial court did not fully explain which facts it relied on to support each conviction, implying the court based both convictions on identical facts.
“However, we assume the trial court, at a bench trial, followed the law and applied it correctly. There was a sufficient separate basis to convict Glenn of both resisting law enforcement and disorderly conduct,” Judge Melissa May wrote.
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