Crime Victim Relief Act (CVRA) damages are distinct from common law punitive damages; court properly awarded CVRA damages after making an “assessment of criminality.”
E. Brown
Belork v. Latimer, No. 75A04-1503-MI-100, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., May 5, 2016).
“[A]djoining parcel owners can treat a fence not initially constructed on the true property line between their parcels as a partition fence, and in that circumstance the fence will be considered a partition fence for purposes of the maintenance and repair requirements and cost-sharing provisions of the partition fence statute.”
Hill v. Gephart, No. 49A02-1509-CT-1288, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., May 6, 2016).
Although proof of the violation of a safety regulation creates a rebuttable presumption of negligence, it is a question for the jury whether the violation may be excused or justified because the actions might be reasonably expected by a person of ordinary prudence, acting under similar circumstances, who desired to comply with the law.
Luke v. State, No. 15A01-1409-CR-407, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind. Ct. App., Feb. 24, 2016).
Conviction for stalking four victims, based on conduct spanning January 2012 to February 2014, violated actual-evidence double jeopardy principles when defendant had been convicted a month earlier for invasion of privacy committed against three of the same victims for conduct spanning three days in January 2014. The State presented substantial evidence of the three-day course of conduct in the subsequent trial; and both cases alleged a violation of the same previously issued no-contact order.
Abernathy v. Gulden, No. 45A03-1503-MI-73, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Nov. 30, 2015).
Ind. Code § 9-30-10-4(e), requiring the BMV to use the dates of the offenses rather than the dates of the judgments in determining a person’s status as a HTV, is a procedural amendment which does not violate the ex post facto clauses of the Indiana and United States Constitutions.