State’s inadvertent failure to preserve audio recordings of victims’ initial field interviews and subsequent follow-up interviews did not violate defendant’s rights; no law requires recording of victim interviews, and police did not intentionally sabotage or destroy the recordings they had attempted to make.
Criminal
Hall v. State, No. 49S05-1412-CR-728, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., July 2, 2015).
Trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to compel discovery, even if in violation of the Sixth Amendment, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Wertz v. State, No. 48A04-1409-CR-427, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., July 7, 2015).
“GPS device is similar in nature to a computer or cell phone, and that such a device cannot be treated as a ‘container’ that may be searched pursuant to the automobile exception to the warrant requirement.”
Cox v. State, No. 27A02-1412-CR-599, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., July 7, 2015).
Amelioration doctrine did not apply to defendant’s sentence because the legislature clearly stated in Ind. Code 1-1-5.5-21(b) that it did not intend the amelioration doctrine to apply.
Johnson v. United States, No. 13-7120, ___ U.S. ___ (June 26, 2015).
Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA)’s definition of “violent felony” is unconstitutionally vague as to its residual clause, which covers any felony that “involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another”; clause leaves uncertainty about how to estimate the risk posed by a crime or how much risk it takes for a crime to qualify as a violent felony. (Overruling James v. United States, 550 U.S. 192 (2007) and Sykes v. United States, 564 U.S. 1 (2011).)