COA upholds sentence for inmate after yearlong disappearance from detention

The Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed a man’s multiyear sentence issued after he was arrested on a warrant for failing to return to lawful detention for more than a year.

While serving time for conviction of Level 5 felony burglary, Chris Rochefort was sentenced to three years with the Lake County Community Corrections Kimbrough work release program in Crown Point.

In April 2019, Rochefort was issued a pass to leave work release and was driven by the staff to a mental heath appointment in Gary. After the appointment, Rochefort was informed he would need to take the bus back to the facility. However, he never informed anyone that he didn’t have the money to pay for the fare, didn’t have a bus pass or that he didn’t know how to get back.

Instead, Rochefort boarded a train to Chicago, where he stayed for three months before traveling to Cleveland, Cincinnati, and then to a relative’s home in Indiana where he lived for nearly 10 months. In May 2020, Rochefort was apprehended on a warrant for his arrest for Level 6 felony failure to return to lawful detention.

During his jury trial, Rochefort continually interrupted his attorney and addressed the trial court and the deputy prosecutor directly, prompting rebuke from the judge in front of the jury.

His counsel proffered a final instruction on the defense of necessity, which did not mirror the Indiana pattern instruction. After hearing arguments, the trial court declined to give the proffered necessity instruction because it found that there was insufficient evidence to support it.

A jury thereafter found Rochefort guilty and sentenced him to two years and three months with the Department of Correction, which he unsuccessfully appealed.

In affirming his conviction and sentence, the Indiana Court of Appeals declined to agree with Rochefort’s argument that the judge’s rebuke of him in the presence of the jury placed him in peril on grounds of partiality.

“Here, we cannot conclude that the trial court abandoned its impartiality or improperly denied Rochefort a mistrial based on its admonishment to him to refrain from interrupting,” Judge Patricia Riley wrote for the COA. “The trial court did not demonstrate actual bias, as there was no uncontested matter at issue, and it expressed no opinion on the merits of the case before it.”

The appellate court also found in light of Walker v. State, 269 Ind. 346, 381 N.E.2d 88 (1978); Toops v. State, 643 N.E.2d 387, 390 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994); and Hernandez v. State, 45 N.E.3d 373, 376-77 (Ind. 2015), that in order for the defense of necessity to apply to a criminal offense, the defendant must be responding to a true emergency, “meaning a situation which is then occurring in his presence and requires an immediate response, and that simply avoiding the conditions of incarceration is inadequate to support the defense.”

It found no evidence at trial showing that any of the circumstances presented the type of immediate and present danger required to justify the defense in Rochefort’s case. It similarly noted no evidence as to his being abandoned at the mental health appointment, that he was being threatened or harassed by other inmates, or that he had a panic attack at the appointment.

“Given the absence of evidence showing that at the time he absconded from lawful detention he was responding to an emergency, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to give the necessity instruction,” it concluded.

The case is Chris Lawrence Rochefort v. State of Indiana, 21A-CR-00770.