The nation’s highest court won’t take a case from the Indiana Supreme Court, which decided last year that it did
not violate a man’s Sixth Amendment rights for a lab technician who’d processed DNA evidence to not testify at
trial.
State trial judges can consider sentencing scores to help tailor penalties to individual defendants, as long as those results
aren’t used as final aggravating or mitigating factors in deciding a penalty length, the Indiana Supreme Court says
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the defendant’s sentence that they had increased on appeal in March in an opinion
on rehearing today and addressed the characteristics of an Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) review.
While applauding a prison inmate for pursuing higher education while behind bars, the Indiana Court of Appeals has determined
that man shouldn’t receive additional educational credit time for a program the state system doesn’t consider
to fit into its definition of “literacy and life skills” programs.
The inquiry by a police officer to a driver stopped for a seat belt violation about the "large, unusual bulge"
in his pants went beyond the state's Seatbelt Enforcement Act, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Two Indiana Supreme Court justices objected to affirming a man’s drug sentence for possession within 1,000 feet of a
“youth program center” because the church that ran the programs wasn’t easily identifiable as regularly
running programs for kids.
The nation’s highest court reversed the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals today on an Indiana case, holding that that a federal
sex offender registry law does not apply to those convicts whose interstate travel happened before the 2006 statute took effect.
For the first time since the Supreme Court of the United States’ 2009 ruling that found a defendant had a Sixth Amendment
right to confront the analysts who prepared lab certificates certifying the defendant had cocaine, the Indiana Court of Appeals
ruled that a trial court did not violate the defendant’s right to confrontation by allowing the inspection certificate
for a breathalyzer into evidence, even though the certifier of the equipment did not testify at trial.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has rejected an argument that evidence found in a trash search was stale because no other garbage
had been collected in the past two weeks and that seized material could have been too old.
Addressing an issue that’s divided the state’s intermediate appeals judges, the Indiana Supreme Court has held
that review under Appellate Rule 7 may include consideration of a person’s total penal consequences within a trial court
sentence.
The status as a sexually violent predator for two inmates stands for now, but the Indiana Court of Appeals directed the men
to refile their motions to remove that status pursuant to the recently amended statute dealing with this issue.
Highlighting the highly controversial health care debate that’s played out during the past year, the 7th Circuit Court
of Appeals today ruled on a pretty straightforward case about a pre-existing condition clause that denied a man’s claim
for long-term disability benefits.
The Indiana Supreme Court has addressed the scope of privilege for plea negotiations for the first time in 20 years, upholding the conviction and sentence of a man who drove his pickup truck into an Evansville school bus while intoxicated and injured more than a dozen children.
A Grant Superior judge erred in sentencing a man to register as a sex offender because that requirement wasn't in place at the time he committed his crime, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled.
Although the trial court erred in finding a police officer was a skilled witness uniquely qualified to assess a murder victim's truthfulness, it was a harmless error because his testimony was an admissible lay observation, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded today.
The Indiana Court of Appeals revised a defendant's sentence for rape and other convictions, but it may not have been what the man had in mind when he appealed. In a rare move, the Court of Appeals increased his sentence by 25 years.
A plea of no contest can be admitted under Indiana Evidence Rule 803(8) as a public record proving the fact of a conviction, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed today. The appellate court found no error in admitting a defendant's nolo contendere plea to a Florida murder as proof he was convicted of an offense qualifying him as a serious violent felon.
A panel of Indiana Court of Appeal judges disagreed as to whether a defendant who stole anhydrous ammonia with the intent of selling it to a third party in the future to make methamphetamine, but who never actually sold the chemical, could be charged with possession with intent to manufacture methamphetamine.
A defendant's belief that his right to seek exculpatory evidence trumps the attorney-client privilege is incorrect, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled today.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals addressed an issue of first impression today about whether a District Court may disregard a post-trial factual stipulation between the defendant and the government regarding the amount of drugs for sentencing purposes.