It is reasonable to require a law enforcement officer to follow established policies of completing a written inventory while conducting a warrantless search of a vehicle, but failure to do so will not result in suppression of items found in that search.
Criminal
Beedy v. State, No. 48A02-1510-CR-1703, __N.E.3d__ (Ind. Ct. App., August 22, 2016).
Defendant is entitled to raise a “Romeo and Juliet” defense under Ind. Code § 35-42-4-9(e) if he has not committed a prior sex offense against a person other than the victim.
Curtis v. State, No. 49A02-1512-CR-2293, __N.E.3d__ (Ind. Ct. App., Aug. 22, 2016).
If a person has a fair and reasonable foundation for believing that he or she has a right to be present on the property, there is no criminal trespass. If a person is not given a reasonable period of time to comply with a request to leave the premises, then there is no criminal trespass.
Henriquez v. State, No. 20A04-1510-CR-1841, __N.E.3d__ (Ind. Ct. App., Aug. 9, 2016).
Ind. Code § 35-38-1-1(b) requires trial courts to advise a defendant of the earliest and latest possible release dates, but trial courts are not equipped to make this specific determination. Defendant was not harmed by the trial court’s failure to estimate the dates.
State v. Smith, No. 45A05-1507-CR-945, ___N.E.3d___ (Ind. Ct. App., Aug. 2, 2016).
Trial court had authority to convert felony conviction to a misdemeanor; the terms of the plea agreement do not preclude the conversion because the parties could not have contemplated a misdemeanor conversion when it was entered.