An Indiana trial court was not required to hold a competency hearing before revoking a man’s probation on a rape conviction because the man did not request such a hearing and did not prove that his mental illness was so severe as to relieve him of criminal responsibility for violating his probation, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
A federal court erred in denying a hearing for a man who claimed he was mentally incompetent to plead guilty to a firearm charge and received ineffective assistance of counsel.
State statute allows trial courts to waive respondents’ right to be present at their mental health commitment hearings, though the use of such statute should be limited only to cases where the evidence shows respondents’ presence would be injurious to their mental health, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Thursday in a precedent-setting case.
Under what circumstances may someone be excluded from a hearing to determine whether they should be committed for mental health treatment? The Indiana Court of Appeals grappled with that question during oral arguments June 28, just one day after another panel ruled on another matter of first impression regarding involuntary commitment — the court itself noting scarce caselaw.
An insanity defense is planned for a central Indiana woman who admitted fatally stabbing her young son and daughter.
A judge has ordered an Indiana woman who admitted to fatally smothering her two children to undergo mental health treatment before going to prison under a 130-year sentence.
A divided Indiana Court of Appeals struck a special condition that a man who had been subject to a mental health order of commitment not use alcohol or drugs. The court also criticized the hospital for seeking legal fees in the case from the Marion County Public Defender Agency.
An Indiana woman pleaded guilty Thursday to smothering her two children last fall after abducting them from their custodial grandparents’ home.
A southern Indiana prosecutor says he expects to soon see mental competency evaluations of a man accused of killing his former girlfriend and eating parts of her body.
Court records show a suspended Lake County, Indiana, sheriff's officer charged in a hit-and-run crash after last year's Gary Air Show plans an insanity defense.
A northern Indiana judge has set a June hearing on whether a woman accused of killing her two children is fit to stand trial.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has confirmed a battery conviction against a man who spat in a woman’s face after finding that minor discrepancies in the charging information and evidence at trial did not undermine the case.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the felony neglect conviction of a Wayne County man with a mild intellectual disability, finding that the state presented sufficient evidence to prove that he knowingly neglected his child leading to the boy’s death, and that the testimony of two medical experts was proper.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has ordered a new trial in a Greene County attempted murder case after finding the trial court incorrectly applied the standard of a “knowing” mens rea, rather than a “specific intent to kill.”
As deaths from painkillers and heroin abuse spiked and street crimes increased, the mayor of Everett, Washington, took major steps to tackle the opioid epidemic devastating this working-class city north of Seattle. He sued the maker of OxyContin.
Police officers in Terre Haute are among those taking a weeklong Crisis Intervention Training Program organized by local and state organizations to build stronger relationships between law enforcement, mental health agencies and the local chapter of National Association of Mental Illness.
A southern Indiana man accused of killing his former girlfriend and eating parts of her body in 2014 will undergo psychiatric evaluations, despite his insistence that he's competent for trial.
A lawyer in Virginia Beach, Virginia said experts believe her client is ready to be released from a Virginia psychiatric hospital where he was sent after decapitating his 5-year-old son and saying he was trying to save the boy from the Antichrist.
Attorneys for a southern Indiana man accused of killing his former girlfriend and eating parts of her body in 2014 say he's not competent to stand trial.
A northeast Indiana man charged with killing his father plans to use an insanity defense when he goes to trial in Auburn.