Drug-free zone sentencing enhancement was proper as jury could infer that a minor’s presence was reasonably expected in a public park even though school was in session and it did not have benches, playgrounds, or trees.
Supreme
Bd. of Cmm’r of Union Cty. v. McGuinness, No. 81S01-1708-PL-529, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., Aug. 15, 2017).
County did not have third-party standing to sue on behalf of its residents.
Leonard v. State, No. 02S00-1604-LW-185, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., Aug. 11, 2017).
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.
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.
Miller v. State, No. 28S04-1707-CR-468, __ N.E.3d __ (Ind., July 12, 2017).
The correct legal standard to apply in an attempted murder case is whether the defendant had a “specific intent to kill.”