Sudden heat is characterized as anger, rage, resentment, or terror sufficient to obscure the reason of an ordinary person, preventing deliberation and premeditation, excluding malice, and rendering a person incapable of cool reflection. Here, the State carried its evidentiary burden in negating the mitigating factor and voluntary manslaughter requirement of “sudden heat,” and Defendant’s murder conviction and LWOP sentence.
M. Massa
624 Broadway, LLC v. Gary Housing Auth., No. 22S-CT-140, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., Aug. 29, 2022).
When city only provided notice of the taking and its hearings by publication, even though it knew how to provide personal notice, it deprived the property owner of a meaningful damages hearing.
Miller v. State, No. 22S-CR-59, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., June 29, 2022).
A party invites an error if it was part of a deliberate, well-informed trial strategy, which means there must be evidence of counsel’s strategic maneuvering at trial to establish invited error. As to juror challenges, an anticipated refusal does not excuse compliance with the exhaustion rule; a party must still try to use a peremptory challenge even if he believes it will be unsuccessful.
Church v. State, No. 22S-CR-201, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., June 23, 2022).
Ind. Code § 35-40-5-11.5, the child sex-offense deposition statute, is both constitutionally sound and substantive in nature, and therefore, the Indiana Trial Rules cannot abrogate or modify the statute.
State v. Neukam, No. 21S-CR-567, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., June 23, 2022).
Slaughter, J. In 2020, we held juvenile courts lose jurisdiction once an alleged delinquent child reaches twenty-one years of age. But we left open the question whether the State can file criminal charges against a person who committed the charged conduct before turning eighteen but is no longer a child under the juvenile code. Under […]