The Indiana Supreme Court has dissolved two advisory task forces this week and has replaced them with committees that will continue their respective work. Justices concurred on the decision to dissolve the Language Access Task Force and the Advisory Task Force on Remote Access to and Privacy of Electronic Records, according to a Monday order.
Members of the American public strongly support the First Amendment, but a recent American Bar Association civics literacy survey revealed that some confusion remains about what it actually protects. The results, which go hand-in-hand with the 2019 Law Day theme of “Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society,” revealed what the ABA called “troubling gaps” in the public’s basic knowledge of American civics.
A Terre Haute woman has agreed to plead guilty to neglect in the dehydration death of her infant son after she removed his feeding tube. Tabetha Smith, 39, would face a 16-year sentence if the plea entered Thursday is accepted. Vigo Superior Judge Sarah Mullican took the plea agreement under advisement.
A northeastern Indiana man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for seriously injuring a police officer while fleeing authorities. Kevin J. Turner, 53, Huntertown, had pleaded guilty to three felony charges, including resisting law enforcement, for the October incident involving Kendallville police Officer Blake Kugler.
Jurors have deadlocked on whether to recommend a sentence of life in prison for a 24-year-old Evansville man convicted of murder and robbery in the 2017 slayings of two people in southwest Indiana. Jurors were dismissed Thursday after deadlocking on the question. They convicted Deshay Hackner on Wednesday in the deaths of 29-year-old Dewone Broomfield and his girlfriend, 28-year-old Mary Woodruff.
Taking a harder line on health care, the Trump administration on Wednesday joined a coalition of Republican-led states, including Indiana, in asking a federal appeals court to entirely overturn former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law — a decision that could leave millions uninsured.
An exonerated man whose murder conviction was vacated nearly a decade ago can continue seeking damages against the investigators in his case, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled, reversing a lower court’s decision that the claims couldn’t stand.
A northwestern Indiana woman accused of driving over her boyfriend twice with a car has been charged in his killing. Twenty-three-year-old Briana Rice of Hammond is charged with murder, voluntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the April 24 death of 25-year-old Terrondy Jones.
One of the two Clark County judges wounded in an Indianapolis shooting early Wednesday morning is improving after initially being in critical condition. Meanwhile, action is being taken to temporarily fill the now empty bench seats of the two injured judges. The Indiana Supreme Court said Thursday that Clark Circuit Judge Bradley Jacobs underwent surgery Thursday morning and is now in serious but stable condition.
Attorney General William Barr skipped a House hearing Thursday on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report, escalating an already acrimonious battle between Democrats and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Barr had already lied to Congress in other testimony and called that a “crime.”
Indiana Supreme Court justices rejected nearly all the cases brought before the high court last week on petition to transfer, granting one case and dividing on two others.
A man who brought negligence claims against a sporting goods store that he alleged unlawfully sold a firearm to his girlfriend, who later shot him with it, cannot continue with his complaint after the Indiana Court of Appeals found the store was immune from liability.
The Indiana Supreme Court has expressly disapproved of a Marion County judge’s practice of summarily approving civil commitment orders individually reviewed by the presiding commissioner, though the justices also noted that the fact that the defendants' commitment orders have expired makes their appeals moot.
A Kentucky soldier has been arrested in the fatal shooting of an Indiana teenager. Twenty-six-year-old military police Sgt. German Parra was arrested in Kentucky on charges including murder in the death of 16-year-old Xavier Weir.
Clark County courts are closed Wednesday as two local judges are hospitalized in Indianapolis following an overnight shooting. Clark Circuit Judge Andrew Adams is in stable condition and Circuit Judge Bradley Jacobs is in critical and stable condition after being wounded in the shooting early Wednesday morning.
Judge Robert L. Miller Sr., who established a distinguished career in the law and then devoted his skills and passion to advocating and championing military veterans, died peacefully at his South Bend home April 27. He was 98.
A man convicted for child molesting was granted relief from one of his convictions after an appellate panel agreed that his double jeopardy rights were violated when the state was permitted to amend a charge for which he had already been acquitted.
A split Indiana Court of Appeals reversed four counts of a woman’s conviction, finding the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the state to amend the charging information without giving the defendant a “reasonable opportunity” to prepare and defend against the new counts.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has rejected the petition of two biological parents to establish paternity for their child after the appellate court concluded the mother could not collaterally attack a previous paternity finding for another man who assumed he was the father.
A Lake County sports bar should have contemplated that rowdy behavior might take place outside the facility at closing time, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, finding the bar failed to prove it had no duty to protect a patron who was seriously injured in such a fight.