An Indiana man charged in the road rage shooting death of a Muslim man allegedly yelled “go back to your country” and made ethnic and religious insults against the victim before the shooting, according to court documents.
Concerns surrounding the way Indiana adjudicates and rehabilitates its juvenile offenders has resulted in the proposal of a summer interim committee to address how adequately the juvenile justice system is governed.
Two pieces of legislation that would define public and recreational use of Lake Michigan’s shores and give jurisdiction of seawalls, beach grooming and land walls to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources have made advances in the Indiana Senate this week.
The Republican-dominated Indiana Senate passed a stripped-down hate crimes bill Thursday and sent the measure to the House, where Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and others hope the legislation can still be strengthened. The Senate voted 39-10 in favor of the legislation that was changed two days earlier to remove a list of specifically protected characteristics, including sexual orientation, gender identity and race.
The Republican-majority Senate stripped a hate crimes bill Tuesday of language that specified the types of crimes it would apply to — those motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation, gender and other categories — despite emotional pleas by Democrats to leave the bill as written.
The Supreme Court of the United States will not hear an appeal that sought to restrict public access to the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan. Justices let stand an Indiana Supreme Court decision that found a public access right to the state’s 45 miles of Great Lakes beaches.
Indiana drivers could face tougher penalties for passing stopped school buses under a bill advancing in the Legislature.
After more than three hours of testimony and discussion on Monday morning, the Senate Public Policy Committee voted to send a bias crimes bill to the full Senate for consideration. Senate Bill 12 would give judges the ability to consider whether a crime was committed out of hate or bias toward specific groups of individuals as an aggravating circumstance at sentencing.
A proposed Indiana hate crimes law has been endorsed by a state legislative committee. The Senate Public Policy Committee voted 9-1 on Monday to advance the bill to the full Senate after hearing nearly three hours of public testimony from opponents and supporters of the legislation.
Opponents and supporters of a proposed Indiana hate crimes law are arguing their positions before state legislators. A state Senate committee opened a hearing Monday morning on a bill that would create a law specifically against crimes fueled by biases regarding traits such as race, religion and sexual orientation.
A former Indiana lawmaker’s contract with the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs may have violated state lobbying laws, according to a newspaper investigation. Allen Paul received more than $150,000 from July 2015 to December 2018 after signing a lobbying contract with the department nine months after the former Republican senator retired in 2014.
Individuals who were sexually abused as children will have to keep waiting for justice, now that a bill that could potentially give them more time to sue their abusers has been routed for further study.
A bill that defines the shore of Lake Michigan as belonging to the public and spells out public recreational uses of the shoreline has moved to the full Indiana Senate. Meanwhile, a petition seeking to privatize Indiana’s Great Lakes beaches will be before justices of the Supreme Court of the United States this week.
Smaller political parties would face lower requirements to get their candidates on Indiana's ballot under a bill backed by a legislative panel.
A bill that would require counties using electronic voting systems to also maintain a paper trail is moving forward at the Indiana General Assembly.
A state senator accused of having a conflict of interest over a bill he filed that seeks to eliminate the state’s child labor laws has essentially withdrawn the proposal from consideration this year.
The parents of a 13-year-old boy who opened fire in a Noblesville West Middle School classroom last year say they could not foresee his actions and deny any responsibility for them.
Indiana legislators are considering creating an amnesty period for homeowners and businesses to pay overdue property taxes without the penalty fees and interest.
An Indiana lawmaker’s efforts to eliminate the state’s child labor laws have raised conflict of interest concerns because he employs hundreds of minors at a ski resort.
The shooting at Noblesville West Middle School last year has legislators looking to change state law so that children as young as 12 could face attempted murder charges in adult court.