The Indiana Supreme Court adopts the equitable tolling doctrine of adverse domination when intentional wrongdoing is alleged.
Supreme
State v. Diego, 21S-CR-285, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., June 9, 2021).
Police may not interrogate a person in custody without proper Miranda warnings or else the State risks having those custodial statements suppressed in a criminal trial. However, not every station house interview implicates Miranda. Miranda warnings are only required when a person is in custody; when a person’s’ freedom of movement is curtailed to a level associated with formal arrest and when he or she is under the same inherently coercive pressures in the police station as those at issue in Miranda v. Arizona.
State v. Timbs, 20S-MI-289, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., June 10, 2021).
The excessiveness test announced in State v. Timbs, 134 N.E.3d 12 (Ind. 2019), has two dimensions: instrumentality and proportionality. Instrumentality is not at issue in here because Timbs acknowledged that he used the forfeited vehicle to traffic heroin. As to proportionality, courts must look to whether the forfeiture is grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the offenses and the claimant’s culpability. This inquiry turns on three factors: the culpability of the claimant for misusing the forfeited property, the harshness of the forfeiture, and the gravity of the claimant’s underlying offenses.
Combs v. State, 20S-CR-616, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., June 3, 2021).
The plain view exception to the warrant requirement may justify the seizure of a vehicle believed to be the fruit, instrumentality, or evidence of a crime provided that police are lawfully in a position from which to view the vehicle, its incriminating character is immediately apparent, and police have a lawful right of access to the vehicle.
State v. Ellis, 21S-CR-159, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., April 26, 2021).
When a defendant is processed for home detention, a waiver of the “rights against search and seizure” clearly encompasses the right to be free from search and seizure absent reasonable suspicion.