Amount of restitution awarded to embezzlement victim was abuse of discretion; award included sums an audit revealed were missing but were not shown to be connected to defendant’s conduct, and expenditures to determine the amount of loss.
Criminal
Slaybaugh v. State, No. 79S02-1601-CR-28, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind., Jan. 20, 2016).
Fact that juror was Facebook “friends” with relatives of the victim did not establish juror misconduct, when juror testified that she did not know them personally or recognize them in court, and trial court found her testimony truthful.
Coleman v. State, No. 47A01-1506-IF-659, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. Jan. 19, 2016).
Speed-limit sign facing southbound traffic, reducing speed limit from 55 to 35 mph, was ineffective against northbound motorist, despite county ordinance setting 35 mph speed limit unless otherwise designated; by state law, default speed limit for the road was 55 mph unless “appropriate signs giving notice of the altered limit are erected on the street or highway.”
Rhodes v. State, No. 49A02-1503-CR-173, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. Jan. 19, 2016).
Inventory search of defendant’s vehicle was unconstitutional, absent proof of existence of (or compliance with) established police procedures for such searches.
Kansas v. Carr, No. 14-449, ___ U.S. ___ (Jan. 20, 2016).
The Eighth Amendment does not require capital-sentencing courts to instruct a jury that mitigating circumstances need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Joint capital-sentencing proceeding did not violate defendants’ Eighth Amendment right to an “individualized sentencing determination.”