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The Indiana Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments next month in a murder case in which a defendant was denied a mistrial after a trial court admitted testimony indicating he had a history of domestic violence – something the court had partly prohibited the state from presenting.
According to court documents, in October 2023, Rodregus Morgan was charged with murdering Tracy Harmon, with whom he shared four children.
Before the trial began in the Marion County Superior Court last February, the state filed a notice indicating it would present evidence of Morgan’s prior threats and physical violence directed at Harmon over the course of their relationship. Morgan requested that the court prohibit the state from mentioning any statements regarding abuse that occurred before the death.
Before voir dire, the state submitted a transcript of a deposition that Morgan’s daughter had given, which contained statements about Morgan’s prior abuse of Harmon.
After a recess, the court mostly granted Morgan’s objection to evidence regarding his past conduct, but it permitted certain testimony from the daughter about Morgan’s most recent disputes with Harmon.
On Feb. 5, 2025, a jury found Morgan guilty of murder. But after the verdict was read, the jurors informed the judge that the daughter’s deposition transcript had been mistakenly provided to them to consider during deliberation, according to the brief.
The judge scheduled a hearing on the matter, where Morgan moved for a mistrial.
The court ultimately rejected Morgan’s mistrial effort and sentenced him to 55 years in the Indiana Department of Correction.
Morgan later filed a motion to correct error, arguing a substantial possibility existed that the transcript influenced the jury’s verdict and that the error was not harmless. The court denied that, too.
Morgan appealed, saying the trial court abused its discretion because its denial of Morgan’s motion to correct error was “clearly against the logic, facts, and circumstances presented,” the brief states.
In the appellee’s brief, the state argued there was not a substantial likelihood of prejudice from the jury’s access to the daughter’s deposition transcript because “the bulk of the information contained in the transcript had already been admitted at trial.”
The state argues that the transcript did not provide the jury with any “brand-new” or “surprising” information they had not already heard. The state says the transcript offered context to some of Morgan and Harmon’s fighting that had already been stated during the trial.
“This is not a case where the jury’s verdict might have been easily influenced by extraneous circumstantial evidence, because the State presented clear, direct evidence of Morgan’s guilt,” the state wrote in its brief.
The arguments will be held at Indian Creek High School in Trafalgar, Indiana, on Feb. 9. The scheduled panelists are Judges Peter Foley, Dana Kenworthy and Mary DeBoer.
The case is Rodregus Morgan v. State of Indiana (25A-CR-00836). The arguments can be watched here.
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