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The Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case involving a man who was convicted of 10 counts of misdemeanor invasion of privacy but whose sentence was sharply reduced by a split Court of Appeals of Indiana.
The case — Dustin A. Lane v. State of Indiana, 22A-CR-2276 — will be heard at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Supreme Court courtroom on the third floor of the Indiana Statehouse.
The justices will hear the case on the state’s petition to transfer.
In May, the Court of Appeals of Indiana revised Dustin Lane’s sentence from 3,000 days to 300 days, finding that while Lane violated a no-contact order, his conduct did not warrant the 3,000-day sentence for his misdemeanor convictions.
In 2018, Lane was convicted of Level 6 felony domestic battery resulting in moderate bodily injury. According to court records, the trial court issued a no-contact order prohibiting Lane from direct or indirect contact with the victim, his ex-wife, A.N.
While that order was still in place, between March 2020 and September 2021, Lane sent separate letters, approximately one per month, to A.N. Lane sent the letters — which primarily addressed questions about the parties’ children — while he was still incarcerated for domestic battery.
In January 2022, A.N. reported the letters to the police. Lane was then charged with 10 counts of Class A misdemeanor invasion of privacy.
He pleaded guilty to all charges pursuant to a plea agreement that left sentencing to the trial court’s discretion.
The Lawrence Superior Court sentenced Lane to consecutive 300-day sentences on each count, for an aggregate executed sentence of 3,000 days.
During the same hearing, Lane admitted that he violated his domestic battery probation. Thus, the court revoked his probation and ordered him to serve 730 days of his previously suspended sentence consecutively to his 3,000-day sentence.
The appellate majority concluded Lane’s 300-day sentences should be served concurrently rather than consecutively, for an aggregate of 300 days.
Judge Terry Crone, writing for the majority, acknowledged that a review of Lane’s character did not weigh in favor of revising his sentence, noting a “substantial criminal history including seven prior felony convictions.”
“The nature of Lane’s offenses, on the other hand, persuades us that the trial court simply went too far in imposing ten consecutive close-to-maximum 300-day sentences for these Class A misdemeanors,” Crone wrote.
Senior Judge Margret Robb concurred.
But in a 15-page dissent, Judge Dana Kenworthy stressed Lane’s history of nearly two decades of abuse against the victim and other criminal charges he faced as the result of his actions.
Kenworthy said she saw no compelling evidence to revise Lane’s sentence, so she would defer to the trial court and affirm the sentence imposed.
In its petition to transfer, the state argued that the COA’s opinion was an “unprecedented revision,” and that the majority “reduced Lane’s sentence by 90% despite finding his character did not warrant revision and without identifying anything uniquely restrained or conscientious about Lane’s conduct in committing the offenses.”
The state further argued that an appellate sentence reduction of 90% should “require something extraordinary, not reliance on one prong alone where the nature of the crime is a run-of-mill violation of the statute.”
“Even the more substantial revisions by appellate courts over the last ten years do not drop below 50% of the defendant’s original sentence,” the petition argues.
The arguments will be streamed live online.
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