Courts should take great caution in using the phrase “and/or,” especially in jury instructions, because it is ambiguous and potentially imprecise. Where wording permits two contradictory interpretations, one correct and one erroneous, the jury may be misled as to the law.
C. Goff
G.W. v. State, No. 23S-JV-246, __N.E.3d __ (Ind., Apr. 10, 2024).
When a juvenile court fails to enter the requisite findings of fact in its dispositional order, an appellate court should neither affirm nor reverse. Instead, the proper remedy is to remand the case under Ind. App. R. 66(C)(8) while holding the appeal in abeyance.
A.W. v. State, No. 23S-JV-40, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., March 12, 2024).
Under the second step of the double jeopardy test announced in the Indiana Supreme Court’s Wadle opinion, when assessing whether an offense is factually included, a court may examine only the facts as presented on the face of the charging instrument. Moreover, where ambiguities exist in a charging instrument about whether one offense is factually included in another, courts must construe those ambiguities in the defendant’s favor, and thus find a presumptive double jeopardy violation. In this event, the State can later rebut this presumption at the third step of the Wadle test.
Morales v. Rust, No. 23S-PL-371, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., March 6, 2024).
The Affiliation Statute, the statute that contains objective criteria for determining eligibility to appear on the primary ballot of a major political party and discretion for a party to allow the candidacy regardless of compliance, is constitutional.
Spells v. State, No. 23S-CR-232, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., Jan. 30, 2024).
The statutory cash bail agreement permits application of cash bail to the whole of a defendant’s public-defender costs. However, a court may retain cash bail to pay most other fines, costs, and fees only after considering the defendant’s ability to pay.