Trial counsel was not ineffective for stipulating that defendant’s alleged accomplice, was convicted of murder because the stipulation did not relieve the State of the burden to prove defendant’s intent. Trial counsel pursued a reasonable all-or-nothing strategy when he chose not to seek a lesser-included instruction on reckless homicide.
Paul v. State, 21A-CR-166, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Sept. 21, 2021).
When a person has been simultaneously confined in connection with multiple causes and the court must impose consecutive sentences across those causes, Indiana law requires the trial court to (1) calculate credit time at the rate associated with the first sentence in the sequence of sentences and (2) allocate the time to that first sentence.
Wells v. State, 21A-CR-612, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Sept. 22, 2021).
Exclusion from trial for failing a drug test is improper. In such instances, a trial court should apply, and exhaust, lesser contempt penalties, before imposing the extreme sanction of the deprivation of fundamental rights.
Ramirez v. State, 20S-LW-430, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., Sept. 23, 2021).
The trial court properly exercised its discretion with the respect to the admission of evidence and providing a supplemental jury instruction. Moreover, the imposition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole was not inappropriate.
Reece v. Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. No. 21S-CT-435, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., Sept. 21, 2021).
When visual obstructions are wholly confined to the land, a landowner owes no duty to the motoring public.