BARNES, J.
Bradley Shively appeals his convictions for Class D felony domestic battery, Class A misdemeanor battery, and Class D felony criminal confinement, for which the trial court entered judgment as a Class A misdemeanor. We reverse and remand.
The sole issue is whether the trial court properly denied Shively’s request for court-appointed counsel.
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We cannot conclude the trial court gave the required careful consideration of Shively’s financial situation in either of the pre-trial hearings in which it denied appointment of counsel. At both hearings, there was a rough estimate of Shively’s current earnings. At neither time, however, was there any examination into the amount of Shively’s fixed obligations. On appeal, the State asserts that Shively indicated he had no debts; the record, as we quoted earlier, does not support this assertion. There was no discussion of the amount of any debt payments. Crucially, there also was no discussion of Shively’s obligations to his children. As was revealed in the third, post-trial indigency hearing, Shively has substantial financial obligations to them. There also was no indication in either indigency hearing that Shively had cash savings, or equity in any non-cash assets he could liquidate to pay an attorney.
It also seems Shively’s financial situation deteriorated between the first and second indigency hearings. Although he claimed to be making payments towards owning both a car and a home at the first hearing, he no longer was doing so at the time of the second hearing. Also, although he reported $34,000 in income to the federal government in 2007, he appeared to be on pace to make considerably less than that in 2008. We reiterate that appointment of counsel is required if the defendant becomes indigent and unable to pay counsel at any point in the proceedings. See Moore, 273 Ind. at 8, 401 N.E.2d at 679.
Finally, it is telling that Shively was appointed counsel after trial but before sentencing and was also found indigent by the trial court for purposes of this appeal. There does not appear to have been any change in Shively’s income, or change in his overall financial status, between the time of the second pre-trial indigency hearing and the indigency hearing that occurred after trial. Instead, the trial court at the post-trial hearing undertook a much more thorough examination of Shively’s fixed obligations. It also did not rely upon Shively’s 2007 taxable income information, but rather used the most recent available income information for Shively and did not presume he could earn more money based on news articles outside the record regarding employment in the trucking industry. If Shively was indigent for purposes of sentencing and appeal, it is difficult to perceive why he was not indigent for purposes of trial; there does not appear to have been any marked changed in Shively’s financial status, particularly between the second pre-trial indigency hearing and the post-trial hearing. Cf. Lamonte, 839 N.E.2d at 177 (holding trial court abused its discretion in ordering defendant to pay $400 towards appellate counsel fees, where defendant previously had been found indigent for purposes of trial counsel and there was no indication any aspect of defendant’s financial situation had changed).
Although we understand the reluctance of a trial court to appoint an attorney for one who may be “gaming the system,” in this instance we do not believe sufficient care was given to a close examination of Shively’s financial situation. The pre-trial inquiries regarding indigency were not ones that truly analyzed Shively’s means to pay for a private attorney. Such hearings should have considered not only his actual income as of the time of the hearings, but also his fixed monetary obligations, including his obligations to his family. The trial court conducted a proper, more thorough examination of Shively after trial, and its conclusion at that time that Shively was indigent is inconsistent with its earlier findings that he was not. In other words, the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to appoint counsel for Shively before trial because it lacked sufficient information to conclude that he was not indigent at that time.
We reverse Shively’s convictions because the trial court failed to adequately ascertain before trial whether he was indigent for purposes of court-appointed counsel. If it were not for the fact that Shively was found indigent after trial, we might remand for the trial court to further consider whether Shively is indigent. As this case stands now, however, Shively is indigent and should be considered to still be so for purposes of further proceedings on remand, unless there is evidence his financial situation has markedly improved.
Reversed and remanded.
NAJAM, J., and KIRSCH, J., concur.