In the Richmond Hill explosion murder case, the evidence was sufficient to support the murder convictions and the statutory aggravator; the trial court properly refused to include the lesser-included jury instruction; and, Indiana’s life without parole statute is constitutional.
M. Massa
McGuire v. State, No. 09S02-1707-CR-491, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., July 21, 2017).
Trial court must resentence defendant who was sentenced to forty years imprisonment after entering a guilty plea to one count of felony child molesting when the correct statutory sentencing range was twenty to fifty years, not thirty to fifty years.
Jacobs v. State, No. 49S02-1706-CR-438 , __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., June 29, 2017).
State has the burden to demonstrate the reasonableness of a warrantless search in light of three factors: 1) the degree of concern, suspicion, or knowledge that a violation has occurred, 2) the degree of intrusion the method of the search or seizure imposes on a citizen’s ordinary activities, and 3) the extent of law enforcement needs.
Humphrey v. State, No. 48S02-1609-PC-480, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind. Ct. App., May 5, 2017).
Post-conviction relief due to ineffective assistance of counsel was granted fifteen years after murder conviction affirmed on appeal and not barred by the doctrine of laches.
State v. Smith, No. 45S05-1611-CR-572, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., March 28, 2017).
Defendant’s plea agreement foreclosing the possibility of sentence conversion was not altered by a subsequent statute allowing courts to modify a post-sentence conviction.