A new Indiana rule requiring that booked inmates be assessed to determine risks or benefits of releasing them before trial is expected to eventually reduce overcrowding at the state’s county jails, criminal justice officials say. Criminal Rule 26, which set Indiana’s new pretrial release protocols, was adopted by the Indiana Supreme Court in 2017, but it didn’t take effect statewide until Jan. 1.
A new report shows that 65 Indiana children died from abuse or neglect during 2018, the same number as its last year-long review. The Indiana Department of Child Services said it investigated 242 child fatalities that happened in 2018, determining 26% of those deaths were from abuse or neglect.
An Indiana man charged in the 2018 slayings of two people found in a nature preserve and an abandoned farmhouse will act as his own attorney, a judge has ruled. Madison Circuit Court 6 Judge Mark Dudley granted Daniel Lee Jones’ request to act as his own lawyer, but his public defender will serve as stand-by counsel during the trial.
The judges of the Indiana Court of Appeals have elected Judge Cale Bradford to serve for the next three years as the lower appellate court’s chief judge. He succeeds Judge Nancy Vaidik, whose term as chief expired last month. Bradford, whose term began Jan. 1., has served on the Court of Appeals for nearly 13 years.
Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Patrick Harrington will serve as president of the Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Inc. in 2020 following his recent election to the post.
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill has requested that the United States Supreme Court uphold a Louisiana law requiring all ambulatory surgical centers, including abortion clinics, to hold admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Applications are now available for the 2020 Indiana Conference for Legal Education Opportunity program may now do so, the Indiana Supreme Court announced Friday.
Indiana’s new state public defender was officially appointed Monday with an order from the Indiana Supreme Court. Amy E. Karozos will begin her four-year term as state public defender Jan. 13.
A proposal aimed at banning private schools that discriminate against gay employees and students from receiving Indiana voucher program money is being backed by the state’s Republican school superintendent.
Prosecutors have decided a former Indiana state senator won’t face criminal charges over possible violations of state lobbying laws involving his work with the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs.
The former DCS worker facing criminal charges is scheduled to be in Madison Circuit Court Friday, arguing the indictment against him should be dismissed because not only are the allegations too vague to comply with state law and constitutional guarantees, but also because he is protected by immunity.
A judge ordered an Indiana man to stand trial for the 1994 death of a woman who was strangled and run over with a car in Madison, Wisconsin. Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn said during a hearing Thursday that there’s enough evidence for 52-year-old Willie L. Coleman to be tried for first-degree reckless homicide in the Nov. 4, 1994, death Lula Cunnigan.
A northwestern Indiana judge sentenced a man to the maximum 65 years in prison Thursday for fatally stabbing a female bartender at the tavern where he worked as a bouncer. A Porter County jury in November found Christopher Dillard, 53, of Hobart guilty of murder in the slaying of 23-year-old Nicole Gland.
Indiana police departments issued nearly 2,700 tickets and 1,400 warnings for unsafe driving around school bus stops and routes during a two-month enforcement program, state officials announced Thursday.
Two men accused of beating a man to death with a pipe in a northern Indiana forest are facing a joint trial in April.
The number of cases filed in the United States Supreme Court and federal district courts increased in the last year, while the regional courts of appeal saw a slight filing decrease, according to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s 2019 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.
Cameras and other electronic devices may continue to be used in courtrooms for press coverage of Indiana Court of Appeals oral arguments, according to a Monday Indiana Supreme Court order.
An Indiana prisoner has been granted habeas relief after making “incendiary allegations” that led a district judge to find that he had fraudulently been found guilty in a prison disciplinary action.
An Indiana Court of Appeals panel has reversed the grant of a quadriplegic man’s motion to dismiss a declaratory judgment action after it found he was not entitled to bodily injury liability coverage under his insurance policy.
Federal judges are taking up the challenge to educate Americans about how their government works at a time when false information can spread instantaneously on social media, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote Tuesday in his annual year-end report.