Pursuant to Indiana Criminal Rule 4(B), a trial court may continue a trial upon taking note of a congestion or an emergency without the additional requirement of a local emergency.
State v. Lyons, No. 21A-CR-2187, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., May 11, 2022).
Even in the criminal context, the purpose of Indiana’s discovery rules is to allow a liberal discovery procedure for the purpose of providing litigants with information essential to the litigation of all relevant issues, eliminate surprise, and to promote settlement. When a discovery rule is violated, a trial court has broad discretion to impose sanctions, which may include exclusion of all evidence that might have flowed from the violation.
Crowley v. State, No. 21A-MI-2064, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., May 16, 2022).
If another state previously subjected a pre-SORA offender to a registration requirement, requiring him to register in Indiana is not punitive. It is irrelevant where or when the conviction occurred, as long as another state imposed a lawful registration obligation on the offender and SORA does not so significantly alter that obligation to result in added punishment.
Israel v. Israel, No. 21A-DC-1063, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., May 16, 2022).
Non-disparagement clause in divorce decree amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech because it forbade the parties from making disparaging remarks about the other when outside the presence of the child.
Strack v. State, No. 22S-CR-137, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., May 2, 2022).
At sentencing, a criminal defendant who enters an open guilty plea has a right to allocution distinct from the right to present evidence on his or her behalf.