Supreme Court of Indiana Decisions 2018

Justia Opinion Summary: Finding this to be a rare and exceptional criminal case, the Supreme Court reduced Defendant’s sentence pursuant to Appellate Rule 7(B), holding that the sentence imposed was inappropriate in light of Defendant’s…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the order of the trial court granting Defendant’s petition for specialized driving privileges, holding that the proper venue for seeking relief when the petitioner “forfeits” driving privileges…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Tax Court determining that Richardson’s RV owed no Indiana sales tax because it took RVs it sold to certain out-of-state customers into Michigan before handing over the…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s conviction of murder and felony murder but remanded this matter for a more specific sentencing statement consistent with the dictates of Harrison v. State, 644 N.E.2d 1243, 1262…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment finding Defendant guilty but mentally ill (GBMI), holding that the evidence led only to the conclusion that Defendant was insane when the crime was…

Justia Opinion Summary: In this property dispute, the Supreme Court retained Indiana’s common-law rule prohibiting the unilateral relocation of fixed easements and affirmed the trial court’s entry of judgment for Joseph DeSpirito on his…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the post-conviction court denying Appellant’s petition for post-conviction relief alleging that his trial and appellate counsel were ineffective, holding that, although counsel…

Justia Opinion Summary: In this property dispute between stepsiblings Brenda Sue Gittings and William Deal, the Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part the judgment of the trial court, holding that William was not…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court granting summary judgment in favor of Defendant on Plaintiff’s defective design claim, holding that, under the facts and circumstances of this case, Plaintiff’s misuse of a tool…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court accepted a certified question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and answered that online fantasy sports operators that condition entry to contests on payment and distribute…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the orders of the trial court setting aside the default judgment against certain defendants and denying Plaintiff’s motion to correct error, holding that the defendants made the requisite…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court adjudicating B.T.E. a juvenile delinquent on two counts, including attempted aggravated battery, for plotting to shoot up and blow up his high school, holding…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions of four counts of felony child molesting, holding that the attenuation doctrine can apply under the Indiana Constitution and that Defendant’s statements to law…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court held that the requirement set forth in Pirtle v. State, 323 N.E.2d 634 (Ind. 1975), that an advisement of rights be given prior to police obtaining consent to a search from a person in custody does not…

Justia Opinion Summary: Under traditional rate regulation, an energy utility must first make improvements to its infrastructure before it can recover their cost through regulator-approved rate increases to customers. The process is an…

Justia Opinion Summary: Indiana’s blocked-crossing statute bars railroads from blocking railroad-highway grade crossings for more than 10 minutes, except in circumstances outside the railroads’ control. Ind. Code 8-6-7.5-1. Violations are…

Justia Opinion Summary: In this case brought against two women who were sexually assaulted by two on-duty police officers, the Supreme Court held that the officers’ city employers may be liable under the scope-of-employment rule, traditionally…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court reversed the determination of the trial court finding that R.R., a juvenile, violated his probation and adjudicating him a delinquent for auto theft and false informing, holding that the trial court…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue was what, if any, ability a trial court has to resentence a criminal defendant on felonies underlying a criminal gang enhancement, see Ind. Code 35-50-2-15, when an appellate court has reversed that enhancement…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s conviction for Level 1 felony child molestation, holding that proof of the slightest penetration of the sex organ, including penetration of the external genitalia, is sufficient to…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court held that the Honorable Ryan D. Johanningsmeier, Judge of the Knox Superior Court 2, engaged in judicial misconduct by his conduct in, and his failure to recuse from, a friend’s traffic-infraction case.…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue was whether multiple felony convictions are authorized by Ind. Code 35-44.1-3-1 where a single act of resisting law enforcement while operating a vehicle causes the death of one person and serious bodily…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue was whether a defendant can be convicted of multiple felony resisting law enforcement charges when those charges stem from a single incident of resisting. Defendant pleaded guilty to three felony counts of…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals dismissing the Indiana Utility and Regulatory Commission (the Commission) in this appeal from the Commission’s decision authorizing a rate and charges…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court reversed the judgments of the lower courts dismissing Defendant’s charge of voluntary manslaughter. In dismissing the charge, both of the lower courts found (1) the Criminal Rule 4(C) period within…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the parts of the opinion of the court of appeals that addressed and rejected J.R.’s challenge to a pat-down search and remanded to the juvenile court to vacate the delinquency…

Justia Opinion Summary: The trial court did not err in admitting Defendant’s incriminating statements made in a motel room during the course of a custodial interrogation without an electronic recording of those statements. Defendant was…

Justia Opinion Summary: Because Defendant’s affirmative actions at trial resulted in a violation of his right to an impartial jury, the invited-error doctrine required that Defendant’s conviction be affirmed. After a second trial, Defendant…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue was the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission’s preapproval of approximately $20 million in infrastructure investments, for which the Commission authorized increases to NIPSCO Industrial Group’s natural-gas…

Justia Opinion Summary: Custodial interrogation for purposes of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), at public schools requires police involvement, and so when school officials alone meet with students Miranda warnings are not…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue in this case was when public school students are entitled to Miranda warnings at school. B.A., who was thirteen years old, was escorted from a school bus and questioned in a vice-principal’s office in response…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue was whether the term “others we protect” under a decedent’s employer’s commercial auto policy included the decedent. The decedent was killed by an uninsured driver while the decedent was mowing his home’s lawn…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue was whether an agreement between two children, executed before their father’s death, could be enforced using a chapter in the Probate Code providing for the adjudicated compromise of controversies. Father, who…

Justia Opinion Summary: In this involuntary civil commitment proceeding, the trial court accepted an invalid waiver of A.A.’s right to personal appear, and that error was not harmless. A.A.’s attorney waived A.A.’s right to appear, and the…

Justia Opinion Summary: The anti-SLAPP statute was inapplicable in this medical malpractice action filed by two minors and their parents against a doctor who reported suspected medical child abuse to the Department of Child Services (DSC). The…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision to uphold the rulings of magistrates that issued a warrant to conduct a thermal-imaging search of a private residence and a warrant to search the physical premises,…

Justia Opinion Summary: Indiana’s post-conviction rules did not allow Petitioner to bring a challenge to a statute barring him, as a serious sex offender, from school property in a post-conviction proceeding because Petitioner was challenging a…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s order granting summary judgment for Defendants - a lawyer and his law firm - in this lawyer malpractice case, holding that Defendants failed to negate the causation element of…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part Defendant’s sentence imposed in connection with his felony incest conviction, holding that one special sex offender probation condition imposed by the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Indiana law allows a judgment-creditor to garnish a cash bail bond the judgment-debtor posted in an unrelated criminal matter. Here, Plaintiff obtained a default judgment against Defendant in the superior court. While…

Justia Opinion Summary: Under the circumstances of this case, Mother’s consent was necessary to grant the child’s stepmother’s petition to adopt the child. Here, due to her drug addiction, Mother had voluntarily agreed to modify custody. Under…

Justia Opinion Summary: The hospital that paid out a doctor’s ownership interest after his employment as a cardiologist terminated did not breach its agreement with the doctor. Dr. Roderick Sawyer worked as a cardiologist for St. Vincent…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court found that the Honorable Dean A. Young, a circuit court judge, engaged in judicial misconduct and ordered that Judge Young be suspended from office without pay for six days. The matter was before the…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed T.H.’s adjudication as a delinquent but remanded the case to the trial court to modify its records to show that T.H. committed an act that would be criminal mischief as a Class B misdemeanor.…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant pleaded guilty to attempted residential entry and resisting law enforcement. Defendant failed to appear at his sentencing hearing. Counsel moved for a continuance of the sentencing hearing, but the trial court…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant, who was charged with voluntary manslaughter without also being charged with murder, was properly found guilty even where the State conceded the existence of sudden heat to support the standalone charge. On…

Justia Opinion Summary: At issue in this case was what constitutes sufficient evidence to prove a person intentionally or knowingly violated a protective order. K.G., the pastor of a small Indiana church, sought a protective order against…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court convicting Defendant of murder and conspiracy to commit murder and sentencing him to life imprisonment without parole for the murder conviction. The Supreme…

Justia Opinion Summary: The boundary separating public trust land from privately-owned riparian land along the shores of Lake Michigan is the common-law ordinary high water mark (OHWM). Absent an authorized legislative conveyance, the State…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Department of Correction’s change to Indian’s lethal injection protocol, which added Brevital to the lethal injection cocktail, does not carry the effect of law, and therefore, the new three-drug protocol is not a…

Justia Opinion Summary: A trial court judge is not required to recuse himself or herself from a case solely because counsel for one of the parties served as a professional reference and wrote a recommendation letter in support of the judge’s…