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Published by the Indiana Office of Court Services

Pittman v. State, No. 49A05-1504-CR-137, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. Nov. 5, 2015).

November 9, 2015 Filed Under: Criminal Tagged With: Appeals, E. Brown

Brown, J.
Noah Pittman appeals his convictions and sentence for attempted stalking as a class B felony and carrying a handgun without a license as a class A misdemeanor. Pittman raises five issues which we revise and restate as:
I. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying Pittman’s motion to dismiss the charge of attempted stalking….
We affirm.
….
Pittman argues that “[u]nlike many crimes, stalking has a success or result element” where the statute defining what constitutes “stalking” includes that the defendant’s conduct “actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, or threatened.” [Record citations omitted throughout.] He suggests that “[a] logical and factual fallacy” therefore occurs when a person is charged with stalking as an attempt due to the general attempt statute’s provision that legal or factual impossibility is not a defense for the accused person to commit the crime attempted because in such a case “a defendant can be charged and convicted for conduct as an attempt crime that is actually not criminal conduct and is only criminal conduct when charged as an attempt.” …
The State contends … that Pittman’s argument is based on an “incorrect premise that the State must prove all of the elements of the crime that is being attempted in addition to the elements of the attempt statute.” It argues that the legislature criminalized actions made with the requisite culpability that constitute a substantial step for the commission of that crime “even if that behavior does not meet all of the elements of the crime the defendant is attempting to commit.” The State analogizes … that “under Pittman’s logic, no person could be convicted of attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder unless the intended victim is actually killed . . . .”
….
… [A]lthough the completed crime of stalking requires that the State prove that the defendant’s conduct “actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, or threatened,” the crime of attempted stalking does not require such a showing. Rather, all that is required to prove attempted stalking is that the defendant took a substantial step toward committing the crime of stalking while acting with the requisite intent to commit stalking. Although the unambiguous language of the stalking statute clearly requires that, for the commission of the completed offense, the defendant’s conduct actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, or threatened, this fact does not manifest a legislative intent to foreclose application of the general attempt statute to prosecute unsuccessful attempts to commit stalking. …
….
Affirmed.
Riley, J., and Altice, J., concur.

 

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