Adopts Court of Appeals holding that IC 35-50-2-2(i)’s provision limiting suspension of Class A felony child molesting sentence, with a perpetrator over 21 and a victim under 12, to portion of sentence over 30 years does not establish the minimum sentence for the offense, which is 20 years.
Criminal
Sanjari v. State, No. 20A03-1007-CR-384, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Feb. 11, 2010)
Defendant was properly tried in absentia after he refused to leave his cell for trial, when evidence indicated he had been ill due to his hunger strike but was better on the date of trial. Defendant was also properly denied additional continuances near trial and properly required to represent himself, after the court had granted one continuance for defendant’s counsel of choice to obtain admission in Indiana pro hac vice but counsel then submitted two defective requests for admission. Defendant was charged with two counts of criminal nonsupport, one for each of his children, but as there was only a single support order for support in gross, he could be convicted only a a single count of failure to support.
Goens v. State, No. 41A01-1006-CR-277, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Feb. 14, 2011)
Statute requires only one operating stoplight on a vehicle, so motorist whose vehicle had one operating stoplight and one burned out was not in violation of the traffic law, and officer’s good faith belief that an unoperational stoplight was an infraction did not justify stopping the motorist, so that motion to suppress should have been granted.
State v. Joslyn, No. 49S04-1102-CR-85, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind., Feb. 16, 2011)
When protective order notice was left at subject’s home but the return of service did not indicate that notice was also mailed to last address as required by Trial Rule 4.1, subject’s statement to police and admission at trial that he received the notice in combination with evidence of T.R. 4.1 notice attempt were sufficient to support his invasion of privacy conviction.
State v. Tharp, No. 49S02-1005-CR-256, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind., Feb. 16, 2011)
Actual notice of a protective order sufficient for a conviction of invasion of privacy need not come from an agent of the state, but in this case conviction is reversed because the only evidence defendant knew of the protective order was testimony the protected person told him about it and at the same time said the order was no longer valid.