F. Sullivan

Defendant had no opportunity to object to the court’s declaration of a mistrial and accordingly cannot be said to have consented to it by failure to timely object, but the repeated improper comments by defense counsel in trial warranted the trial court’s declaration of a mistrial without defense consent, under the manifest necessity standard.

1994 sex offender’s transformation “by operation of law” into sexually violent predator under 2007 legislation did not violate Indiana ex post facto protections or Indiana separation of powers provision.

“[T]he three-step test for the discoverability of information outlined in State v. Cline (In re WTHR-TV) . . . is not reached when information is protected by an unqualified privilege unless a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights would be violated by enforcing the privilege.” Here, defendant had no Due Process or Sixth Amendment right to avoid the statutory victim advocate privilege, which prevented discovery of the records of a nongovernmental counseling agency.

“[T]he three-step test for the discoverability of information outlined in State v. Cline (In re WTHR-TV)” applies here to non-privileged video taken by a private entity.