Defendant’s personal waiver of second-phase jury trial was required; counsel could not waive it on defendant’s behalf, even though defendant had just been through first phase of bifurcated trial.
Trial court did not abuse its discretion in taking judicial notice of prior case file as evidence of defendant’s prior conviction, because file was readily and publicly available and cause number was repeatedly an unambiguously identified on the record; however, better practice would have been to formally enter the relevant documents into the record.
L. Rush
Gibson v. State, No. 22S00-1206-DP-360, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind., April 12, 2016).
Allowing State to amend death-penalty charging information shortly before trial—changing the aggravator from having “committed” another murder to having “been convicted of” another murder—was not error.
State v. Taylor, No. 46S04-1509-CR-552, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind., March 30, 2016).
Police eavesdropping on attorney-client conference was reprehensible and presumptively prejudicial, but under the circumstances did not necessarily warrant suppression of all testimony from officers who invoked their Fifth Amendment privilege about the eavesdropping. Presumption of prejudice was rebuttable if State could prove beyond reasonable doubt that each witness’s anticipated testimony was untainted by the misconduct and do so without implicating witnesses’ Fifth Amendment privilege.
Jackson v. State, No. 48S02-1509-CR-554, ___ N.E.3d ___ (Ind., Mar. 2, 2016).
Under Indiana RICO offense, “continuity” is relevant to proving that the incidents of criminal conduct were “not isolated”; but unlike federal RICO, “continuity” is not itself a discrete element of the offense.
Myers v. Crouse-Hinds Division of Cooper Industries, Inc., No. 49S00-1502-MI-119, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., March 2, 2016).
The Indiana Product of Liability Act statute of repose does not apply in cases where there is prolonged exposure to inherently dangerous foreign substances like asbestos.