Pursuant to TR 47(D), trial courts must permit parties or their counsel to question prospective jurors directly. The trial court may also examine the jurors. As part of its own examination, the court may, but does not have to, include questions the parties submit to the court in writing. If the court elects to examine the prospective jurors, it is within its discretion to decide whether its examination or the parties’ examination will occur first, but whenever the trial court examines the prospective jurors, it must allow the parties an opportunity to supplement the court’s inquiry by posing their own additional questions directly to the prospective jurors.
Criminal
Johnson v. State, No. 22A-CR-427, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Jan. 24, 2023).
The trial court violated defendant’s federal and state constitutional rights of confrontation when the court required the witnesses to wear masks while testifying without entering specific facts of necessity. However, the error was harmless.
A.A. v. State, No. 22A-CR-1757, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Jan. 27, 2023).
The Trial Rules govern discovery and, as incorporated by Indiana’s Criminal Rules, apply to all criminal proceedings so far as they are not in conflict with any specific rule adopted by the Indiana Supreme Court for the conduct of criminal proceedings.
Keene v. State, No. 22A-CR-1335, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Jan. 30, 2023).
The test for awarding credit for pre-trial confinement remains whether the defendant’s pre-trial confinement is the result of the criminal charge for which the sentence is being imposed, including where plea agreements involving multiple cases are involved.
Carmack v. State, No. 21S-LW-00471, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., Jan. 12, 2023).
Sudden heat is characterized as anger, rage, resentment, or terror sufficient to obscure the reason of an ordinary person, preventing deliberation and premeditation, excluding malice, and rendering a person incapable of cool reflection. Here, the State carried its evidentiary burden in negating the mitigating factor and voluntary manslaughter requirement of “sudden heat,” and Defendant’s murder conviction and LWOP sentence.