To be classified as a serious violent felon, a defendant must have been convicted of a statutory listed felony. If a defendant’s qualifying felony conviction is reduced to a misdemeanor by virtue of the AMS statute, a defendant would no longer qualify as a serious violent felon.
Criminal
Lane v. State, No. 24S-CR-150, __N.E.3d __ (Ind., May 2, 2024).
Sentencing courts should consider the full range of available options, including community-based rehabilitation programs, for defendants who commit low-level offenses but pose little continuing danger to others. However, to ensure public safety, courts should consider extended jail sentences for low-level offenders with a history of violence who pose a continuing threat to others. Reviewing courts will defer to a trial court’s considered assessment that a person is too dangerous to receive anything but a lengthy executed sentence.
Dunn v. State, No. 24S-CR-123, __N.E.3d __ (Ind., Apr. 10, 2024).
Courts should take great caution in using the phrase “and/or,” especially in jury instructions, because it is ambiguous and potentially imprecise. Where wording permits two contradictory interpretations, one correct and one erroneous, the jury may be misled as to the law.
G.W. v. State, No. 23S-JV-246, __N.E.3d __ (Ind., Apr. 10, 2024).
When a juvenile court fails to enter the requisite findings of fact in its dispositional order, an appellate court should neither affirm nor reverse. Instead, the proper remedy is to remand the case under Ind. App. R. 66(C)(8) while holding the appeal in abeyance.
Rose v. State, No. 23A-CR-2139, __N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Apr. 8, 2024).
A sex or violent offender must register, among other things, their username for any social networking web site. A website is a social networking web site if, among other things, it provides a member with the opportunity to communicate with another person. This element does not require the website to have a built-in messaging or chat function so long as it provides some way for a member to contact another person.