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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana Supreme Court will let stand the reversal of a trial court’s adult conviction and 25-year executed sentence for Paul Henry Gingerich, who was 12 at the time he and an older boy shot and killed a Kosciusko County man.
Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller appealed the Indiana Court of Appeals’ ruling in December that threw out Gingerich’s murder conspiracy conviction. The judges held that the Kosciusko County trial court abused its discretion in denying Gingerich a continuance of a waiver hearing from juvenile court for which his defenders had five days to prepare. The case was remanded for a new hearing in juvenile court.
Gingerich, now 15, pleaded guilty and was sentenced as an adult for his role as the younger co-defendant in the 2010 shooting death of Phillip Danner. Also convicted was Danner’s stepson, Colt Lundy, who was 15 at the time.
The case drew international attention as Gingerich was believed to be the youngest person in Indiana history to be convicted as an adult for his involvement in a killing.
The justices unanimously rejected a petition to transfer. “The court has voted on the petition. Each participating member has had the opportunity to voice that justice’s views on the case in conference with the other justices,” according to a March 7 docket entry. “The court now denies the appellee’s petition to transfer jurisdiction.”
Read more about the Gingerich case in Indiana Lawyer.
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