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The Indiana Supreme Court denied 19 transfer petitions and granted one for the week ending Feb. 16.
Included in the denials was a case, Jennifer L. Dean v. State of Indiana, involving a Flora woman convicted of murder in a fatal robbery.
According to court records, a Carroll Circuit Court jury trial was held for Jennifer Dean in April 2022 after she was charged with one count of felony murder and one count of felony conspiracy to commit robbery resulting in serious bodily injury.
During voir dire, the trial court instructed prospective jurors on the reasonable doubt standard.
One prospective juror, when asked how powerful the proof needs to be, said 16 on a scale of one to 20.
The court said, “It’s perfect, 80 percent. I mean, he nailed it.”
Neither Dean nor the state objected to the court’s remark, and that prospective juror was not selected.
The jury found Dean guilty, and the trial court entered judgment of conviction on the felony murder count.
Dean appealed, arguing the trial court committed fundamental error by endorsing “80% certainty” as a description of the reasonable doubt standard.
The Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed Dean’s conviction and 60-year prison sentence, with the appellate court ruling “80% certainty” as a description of the reasonable doubt standard was improper but did not rise to the level of fundamental error.
All justices concurred in denying transfer to that case except for Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Christopher Goff, who voted to grant the petition transfer.
Rush and Goff also voted to grant transfer to Kimberly J. Brook v. State of Indiana, 22A-CR-2110, in which the COA affirmed a finding that a woman’s communication with her former attorney was for the purpose of perpetrating a fraud on the state and trial court and, therefore, was not subject to attorney-client privilege.
For the remaining transfer petitions that were denied, all justices concurred.
The high court granted transfer to Jennifer R. Teising v. State of Indiana, handing down its decision in the case on Feb. 15.
In that decision, the justices vacated Jennifer Teising’s 21 theft convictions, ruling that concerns about the former Wabash Township trustee’s residence should have been handled via a civil action, not a criminal action.
A grand jury indicted Teising on 21 counts of theft. The indictment alleged that Teising no longer resided within Wabash Township during the COVID pandemic, so she forfeited her office and the right to continue collecting her salary. Thus, the 21 paychecks she collected after she allegedly moved away constituted theft.
The Tippecanoe Superior Court found her guilty as charged, but the Court of Appeals of Indiana reversed.
In the Supreme Court decision granting transfer, Justice Derek Molter wrote that the justices did not need to decide the constitutional residency question because they agreed with Teising’s argument that even if she did forfeit her office, the state’s remedy was to remove her from office through a civil quo warranto action, not to convict her of theft.
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