Norman F. Arterburn

The case concerned Donna Chadwick's conviction for second-degree murder of her twenty-one-month-old daughter, for which she received a sentence of fifteen to twenty-five years. On appeal, Chadwick argued that the trial court erred by allowing the state's main witness, a co-defendant who had entered an insanity plea in a separate proceeding, to testify without ordering a new psychiatric examination, and that the evidence was insufficient to show she inflicted the fatal injuries. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that a competency hearing with testimony from the witness and his counsel, along with prior psychiatric reports finding him competent, showed no abuse of discretion in permitting the testimony. The court further held that testimony from the witness describing Chadwick striking the child with a shoe, medical evidence on the cause of death, and other witness accounts provided sufficient evidence for the jury to convict despite conflicting testimony from Chadwick herself.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Lester French, who was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder (while committing a kidnapping), kidnapping, armed robbery, armed rape, and carrying a handgun without a license, arising from a 1974 robbery of a grocery store in which the victim was abducted, sexually assaulted, and killed; he received a death sentence for the murder along with consecutive prison terms for the other counts. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences. It rejected challenges to the constitutionality of Indiana's death penalty statute, holding that capital punishment is not cruel and unusual punishment per se under the Eighth Amendment or the state constitution, consistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedents such as Gregg v. Georgia, and that the statute's provisions for imposing the death penalty in specified circumstances (including killings during a kidnapping) satisfy due process requirements under the Fifth Amendment. The court also addressed evidentiary issues but upheld the trial court's rulings on the admissibility of testimony.

criminal law

The case involved Ernest Richard Tope's appeal from his 1975 conviction for first-degree murder and life sentence, based on the denial of his motion to correct errors. The court reviewed challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, including testimony from witnesses like an alleged accomplice and jailhouse informant, as well as the admission of autopsy photographs and the denial of a new trial motion supported by an affidavit about a potential alibi witness. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the evidence was sufficient for the jury to convict, that the photographs were properly admitted without prejudice, that no exculpatory evidence had been improperly suppressed, and that the newly discovered evidence was merely impeaching and unlikely to change the outcome.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Carl W. Sanderson's 1973 petition for post-conviction relief challenging his 1966 guilty plea to first-degree murder, which resulted in a life sentence; he argued the plea was not knowing and voluntary due to his mental state and ineffective assistance of counsel. The trial court denied the petition after a hearing, and the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed that denial on appeal. The court noted that Boykin v. Alabama did not apply retroactively, so specific constitutional advisements were not required, but applied a relaxed burden of proof for the ineffective counsel claim under prior precedent; it found no reasonable doubt as to counsel's effectiveness based on conflicting testimony resolved against the petitioner, along with evidence that counsel had secured a favorable venue change via plea agreement, and that psychiatric reports did not demonstrate the plea was involuntary. The court also rejected claims regarding the admission of a confession at the post-conviction hearing as non-prejudicial.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Stephen Cheeks's conviction for two counts of armed robbery following a 1975 incident at a Kroger store in Indianapolis, where two men used guns to steal cash, food stamps, and a purse. Cheeks appealed the denial of his motion for discharge under Indiana Criminal Rule 4(A), the admission of evidence seized during a traffic stop and frisk, and the trial court's procedure allowing jurors to submit written questions. The court affirmed the convictions, holding that delays were attributable to the defense or agreed upon by Cheeks, waiving any speedy trial claim, that the stop, observation of the purse in plain view, and frisk yielding the stolen items were constitutionally permissible, and that the juror question procedure was within the trial court's discretion with no shown prejudice. The court found no error in any of the rulings and upheld the judgment.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned Grady Thomas Bobbitt's convictions for commission of a felony (robbery) while armed and for inflicting injury during the commission of a robbery, arising from an armed holdup at a pharmacy in which a customer was shot. The Indiana Supreme Court vacated the armed robbery sentence and conviction, holding that the armed robbery charge is embodied in the inflicting injury charge under prior precedent in Swininger v. State, so that separate sentencing constituted fundamental error. All other sentencing issues, including consecutive sentences and jury involvement, were rendered moot by this ruling. The court also addressed the sufficiency of evidence regarding the defendant's age for the armed robbery charge but did not reach a final determination on that point independent of the vacatur.

criminal lawprocedure