Man seeks return of 51 guns taken under ‘red flag law’

An Indianapolis man is again petitioning for the return of his 51 confiscated firearms after a judge previously determined him dangerous due to his bizarre behavior near a Bloomington bar. But an Indiana Court of Appeals panel Tuesday seemed to struggle with the argument that he was still dangerous six years later.

In 2012, Robert Redington was found across the street from Kilroy’s Sports Bar looking through a range-finder at the place where missing Indiana University student Lauren Spierer was last seen. Bloomington police detained Redington for mental observation after he told them he could see spirits and that he was investigating Spierer’s disappearance.

A Monroe Circuit Court judge then ordered Redington’s 51 guns and ammunition be confiscated after determining him to be “dangerous” under I.C. § 35-47-14-1(a)(2)(B). Known as Indiana’s “red flag law,” the statute allows law enforcement to take possession of firearms, pending formal hearings, from people who are found to be statutorily “dangerous."

Redington initially challenged the confiscation to the Indiana Court of Appeals, which affirmed the trial court’s order in a divided August 2013 decision. Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court likewise denied Redington’s petition to transfer the case in November 2013. Two years later, Redington again appealed to the trial court for the return of his firearms, but he was denied upon the finding that Redington failed to carry his burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that circumstances had changed since 2012 and that he was no longer dangerous.

During a Tuesday oral argument before an appellate panel consisting of Judges Patricia Riley, James Kirsch and Margret Robb, appellant counsel Guy Relford argued that Redington was never proven to be an imminent risk of personal injury to anyone. Relford noted that in the more than five years since the first hearing took place, Redington had been evaluated by three certified doctors and psychiatrists, all of whom found him not dangerous.

“Yet, despite the state not offering a bit of evidence at that hearing, specifically no expert testimony that refuted the expert evaluations and conclusions of the mental healthcare practitioners who had observed and examined Mr. Redington, the trial court still rejected all of those professional opinions and found him to be dangerous,” Relford said. “We think that is clearly erroneous.”

Relford argued that the issue before the trial court was whether Redington was dangerous at the time of the 2018 hearing, not whether he was found to be dangerous at the initial hearing in 2012. He further argued that Redington was not found to have a mental illness under the statute, but rather that the issue at hand was whether Redington had a current propensity for emotionally unstable conduct.

Relford added anyone could be potentially dangerous in the future, but no one is able to predict that without speculation. When asked whether his argument would be different if Redington had asked for his guns back six months after the initial confiscation, Relford said the current argument for their return was substantially stronger as to the amount of time that had passed.

“What’s changed is the six years since that initial hearing, were any prediction that Mr. Redington was ever going to be dangerous have not come to pass,” Relford said. “How long do we have to wait?”

Opposing state counsel Ellen Meilaender said that Redington’s potential dangerousness could be quantified by the way it was given credence originally in 2012, arguing that the statute did not require Redington to be dangerous within a set period of time.

However, the appellate panel questioned Meilaender’s argument, noting that the initial evidence was several years old and that no new evidence was presented as to whether Redington’s formally diagnosed psychiatric conditions had resulted in any dangerous or violent conduct, or would in the future.

“He could have gone to counseling and had somebody say he's loonier than he was before,” one judge said. “I mean, the best evidence is nothing's happened, and we've got five more years, so how do you say nothing's changed, that it's still operative?”

Meilaender then struggled to agree with the appellate panel regarding testimony of medical professionals on Redington’s behalf who found he was no longer dangerous, and ultimately requested the Court of Appeals affirm the trial court’s judgment in Robert Redington v. State of Indiana, 18A-CR-00950.