Roger O. DeBruler

Eric D. Holmes was convicted by a jury of two counts of murder, attempted murder, robbery, and conspiracy to rob arising from a fatal attack on two restaurant managers and a coworker during a robbery at closing time. The trial judge imposed a death sentence based on the aggravating circumstances of killing during a robbery and multiple murders after the jury could not reach a sentencing recommendation. On direct appeal, Holmes raised claims including prosecutorial misconduct in the penalty phase and errors in jury instructions regarding alternative sentences. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the murder convictions, the death sentence, and most other convictions and sentences, concluding that the evidence was sufficient and that the asserted errors were either unpreserved or did not require reversal, while vacating the conspiracy conviction and reclassifying the robbery sentence.

criminal lawprocedure

This case is an appeal from the denial of post-conviction relief in which Thomas Schiro challenged his death sentence for a 1981 felony murder conviction involving the rape and killing of Laura Luebbehusen. Schiro was convicted by a jury on the felony murder charge but not intentional murder, and although the jury recommended against the death penalty after a sentencing hearing, the trial judge imposed it. The Indiana Supreme Court had previously affirmed the sentence on direct appeal without applying a special standard of review for jury recommendations against death. Following its later decision in Martinez Chavez v. State, which requires express judicial consideration of such recommendations and closer appellate scrutiny, the court granted Schiro successive post-conviction relief. It reversed the denial of relief, set aside the death sentence, and imposed the maximum term of sixty years for felony murder, concluding that Schiro was entitled to the benefit of the new review standard.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether a second probation revocation hearing based on the same escape from jail violated double jeopardy when the trial court sua sponte set aside its initial revocation order. The Court of Appeals affirmed the second revocation, concluding that revocation proceedings are not criminal prosecutions subject to double jeopardy. Justice DeBruler dissented, reasoning that the hearings are penal in nature because they risk loss of liberty, are analogous to the juvenile proceedings deemed criminal in Breed v. Jones, and that the sua sponte order functioned like an improper mistrial without manifest necessity, barring the second hearing.

criminal lawprocedure

In Tibbs v. Huber, Hunt & Nichols, Inc., plaintiff Roy Tibbs, a state engineer, sued mechanical contractor Grunau and general contractor HHN for personal injuries after falling on a piece of pipe in a stairwell during a state office building renovation, claiming negligence in the maintenance of Grunau's nearby pipe-cutting station. The trial court granted summary judgment to both defendants on the ground that they owed no duty to Tibbs, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer and reversed as to Grunau, holding that Grunau owed a duty of care because the stairwell was within the range of foreseeable harm from its work area, even though Grunau did not control the stairwell, relying on precedents such as Fort Wayne Cooperage Co. v. Page and Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.; the court summarily affirmed the judgment for HHN and remanded for further proceedings.

torts & liabilityprocedure

In Poulton v. State, the defendant was convicted after a jury trial of murder and robbery as an accomplice for participating in the December 1993 home invasion and killing of a 71-year-old man in Clarksville, Indiana, and was sentenced to consecutive terms totaling 70 years. On direct appeal, he argued that the trial court erred by admitting his two statements to police (claiming an incomplete Miranda warning on the first statement tainted the second), by denying a motion to continue the trial, and by imposing an excessive sentence. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentence, holding that any Miranda objection was waived because defense counsel did not object when the statements were offered at trial, that the sentence was not manifestly unreasonable given the defendant's active role in planning, executing, and concealing the crime, and that no other reversible error occurred.

criminal lawprocedure

This case concerned whether insurance companies had a duty to defend Seymour Manufacturing Company against claims by the EPA for environmental cleanup costs stemming from alleged improper storage and leaking of hazardous waste at its disposal facility. The trial court denied SMC's motion for partial summary judgment on the duty-to-defend issue, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Indiana Supreme Court reversed, holding that the insurers must defend SMC because the pollution-exclusion clauses in the policies were ambiguous under the precedent of American States Ins. Co. v. Kiger, and the duty to defend is broader than the duty to indemnify. The court construed the ambiguous terms against the insurers that drafted them and remanded for further proceedings.

environmentbusiness & regulatory