Indiana Court Decisions: Sept. 7-20, 2023

7th Circuit Court
of Appeals

Published Sept. 6, posted to theindianalawyer.com Sept. 7

United States of America v. Tyree J. White

21-2296

7th Circuit vacates robbery sentence

A bank robbery sentence that “far exceeds” the statutory minimum must be revisited, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in vacating the sentence.

Defendant-appellant Tyree White and several others committed multiple armed robberies in Indianapolis in 2017. White was the organizer and lookout while the others carried out the holdups.

The group robbed a bank and two cellphone stores and were attempting to rob a Verizon store when undercover detectives stopped them.

White was charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery. He pleaded guilty to all four charges, and the Indiana Southern District Court accepted the Sentencing Guidelines calculations in the presentencing report.

The calculations produced an advisory sentencing range of 97 to 121 months. The judge imposed four concurrent 108-
month terms.

On appeal, White challenged his sentence on two grounds. First, he claimed the nine-year prison term for the bank robbery conspiracy conviction exceeded the applicable statutory maximum.

The 7th Circuit agreed.

“Because White’s 108-month sentence on the bank-robbery conspiracy conviction clearly exceeds the applicable statutory maximum, it is unlawful,” Chief Judge Diane Skyes wrote. “The judge must impose a new sentence on that count. Though she has the discretion to restructure the entire sentence, she is not required to do so.”

Second, White challenged two applications of the guidelines enhancement for physically restraining a victim “to facilitate commission” of a robbery.

The court found that the physical-restraint enhancement was properly applied to one of the robbery-conspiracy counts because during the bank robbery, one of White’s accomplices grabbed a bank manager by his shirt and led him to the lobby at gunpoint. That counts as physical restraint, the 7th Circuit ruled.

But when they were robbing one of the cellphones stores, an accomplice ordered an employee to move while holding a gun. That did not count as physical restraint.

“This error alone was harmless, however; it did not alter the applicable Guidelines range,” Sykes wrote. “So, while the judge may revisit and restructure the entirety of White’s sentence on remand, she must impose a new sentence only on the bank robbery conspiracy count.”

The court vacated thus White’s sentence and remanded for resentencing.

“We are particularly inclined to vacate White’s sentence because, as we’ve explained, the judge made her sentencing decision based in part on the mistaken assumption that the bank-robbery conspiracy count was subject to a statutory maximum of 25 years, while the other three counts were subject to a 20-year maximum,” Skyes wrote. “… Had she known that the maximum sentence for the bank-robbery conspiracy count was in fact only five years, she might have chosen a lesser sentence overall.”

The case is United States of America v. Tyree J. White, 21-2296.

Sept. 12

Marcus Conner v. Dennis Reagle, Warden

22-1780

Mistaken legal advice doesn’t rise to level of ‘extraordinary circumstance’

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals recognized that a man sentenced to an aggregate term of 72 years in prison was given erroneous legal advice to postpone the filing of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, but affirmed a district court’s ruling to dismiss the petition because it was filed more than one year after the man’s conviction became final.

According to court records, Marcus Conner was charged in Elkhart Superior Court with three counts of felony drug dealing and maintaining a common nuisance after he sold cocaine on three occasions to two confidential informants at his home, which was located within 1,000 feet of a youth program center.

After a two-day trial, a jury convicted him on all charges, and because Conner qualified as a habitual offender, he was subject to an additional period of incarceration of up to 30 years.

He was sentenced to an aggregate term of 72 years in prison.

Conner was arrested and detained on Sept. 19, 2012, and he was formally charged on Sept. 24, 2012. He remained in custody pretrial, but the trial did not commence until July 20, 2015 — a delay of 1,029 days from the charging date and 1,034 days from his arrest, or nearly three years.

The Court of Appeals of Indiana’s opinion in this case noted the nine continuances that pushed back the trial date.

Conner was represented by counsel at all times in the long run-up to the trial, but with the exception of one motion for discharge pursuant to Indiana Criminal Rule 4 filed by defense counsel in February 2015, his counsel did not otherwise object to the multiple continuances. And at no time did trial counsel ever make a Sixth Amendment objection to the pretrial delays.

For his part, Conner voiced multiple, consistent objections to the delays and attempted in one instance to file his own Rule 4 discharge motion. But those objections were rejected out of hand on the ground that Conner was represented by counsel.

On direct appeal from Conner’s conviction, his counsel raised two issues: whether the trial court’s findings of docket congestion necessitating multiple delays of the trial date were clearly erroneous, and whether Conner’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was violated.

The Indiana Court of Appeals found no clear error in the docket-congestion findings, and thus no violation of Criminal Rule 4. It found that Conner had forfeited his constitutional speedy trial claim by not raising any Sixth Amendment objections in the trial court, and the court did not reach the merits of that claim.

Conner then commenced a post-conviction proceeding in which he argued that his trial lawyers were ineffective for having never objected that the multiple delays in bringing him to trial were depriving him of his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.

The post-conviction court concluded that because the Sixth Amendment claim had been raised on direct appeal and decided adversely to Conner, res judicata precluded him from raising the claim a second time in the post-conviction proceeding.

Once the Indiana Supreme Court denied Conner’s petition for transfer — which it did on Sept. 24, 2020 — the state post-conviction proceedings were at an end.

Shortly before the Indiana Supreme Court denied review, public defender Michael Sauer, who was representing Conner in the post-conviction proceedings, initiated an email exchange with Michael Ausbrook, a habeas corpus practitioner who teaches habeas litigation at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law.

Sauer initially wanted to know whether Ausbrook might be interested in representing Conner in connection with his anticipated habeas petition: The Indiana public defender’s office did not represent clients in federal habeas proceedings, and Sauer had no experience with such proceedings.

Ausbrook thought that the Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim might be worth pursuing in a petition for certiorari before Conner sought relief in habeas.

Conner had 90 days from the date of the Indiana Supreme Court’s order in which to file a petition, and Sauer wondered whether the one-year habeas clock would remain paused during that period.

So he asked Ausbrook, again via email, “Does the habeas clock remain tolled for 90 days after transfer is denied, regardless of whether a cert[.] petition is ultimately filed?”

Ausbrook replied: “The clock only remains stopped if a cert. petition is actually filed. It’s not like after a direct-appeal decision when you get the 90 days regardless of whether a cert. petition is filed.”

According to the 7th Circuit, this advice was wrong.

On Feb. 20, 2021, Sauer and Ausbrook filed a petition of certiorari on Conner’s behalf. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition on April 26, 2021.

The next day, Sauer sent Conner a letter advising him of the denial and informing him that he had about 200 more days left on the one-year clock to file a habeas petition.

In fact, by that time, the one-year period for filing such a petition had already expired, according to the 7th Circuit.

With the help of a fellow inmate who worked in the prison law library, Conner prepared a pro se habeas petition and filed it on Aug. 4, 2021 — well within the 200-day period Sauer told him remained in which to file the petition, which would not have expired until November.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana dismissed the petition as untimely.

The district court considered whether Conner was entitled to equitable tolling of the statutory deadline but concluded that he was not.

The court acknowledged Conner had received erroneous legal advice but was not convinced that the mistaken advice rose to the level of an extraordinary circumstance that would warrant equitable tolling of the habeas deadline.

The district court observed, “Mr. [Conner] received bad advice, but nothing prevented him from conducting his own independent research and filing a pro se habeas petition within the one-year statute of limitations. [Conner] does not argue that he lacked access to legal materials or that some other circumstance outside his control prevented him from filing his habeas petition on time.”

The district court granted Conner a certificate of appealability on the equitable tolling issue.

The 7th Circuit supplemented the certificate to include the merits of Conner’s ineffective assistance claim premised on his trial counsel’s failure to invoke his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. It also appointed counsel to represent Conner on appeal.

Judge Ilana Rovner wrote the opinion for the court.

Rovner acknowledged that the state conceded that Conner had pursued his rights diligently: Notwithstanding his trial counsel’s failure to make a constitutional speedy trial objection, Conner did attempt to raise his speedy trial rights in the trial court, only to have his objections ignored because he was represented by counsel.

According to Rovner, Conner attempted to pursue those rights on direct appeal, but the appellate court found that he had forfeited his Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim because his lawyer never invoked the Sixth Amendment in the trial court.

Conner then attempted to vindicate his speedy trial rights by means of an ineffective assistance claim, which he pursued all the way through the post-conviction proceedings at each level of the Indiana courts, without success.

“The hurdle that Conner cannot surmount is the requirement that he identify some extraordinary circumstance that prevented him from filing a timely habeas petition,” Rovner wrote.

She added that negligence on the part of the petitioner’s counsel, including counsel’s ignorance or miscalculation of a deadline or the failure to do sufficient legal research to ascertain the deadline, is ordinarily an insufficient basis in and of itself for equitable tolling, as it is not an external obstacle.

The one and only mistake Conner made in pursuing his claim of trial counsel ineffectiveness was to heed his post-conviction lawyer’s advice as to the timing of his habeas petition, Rovner wrote.

“In this case, however, Conner’s lawyer made a mistake, and as a matter of law, Conner must be saddled with that error. As a result, his habeas petition was untimely filed, and it was properly dismissed on that basis,” she wrote.

Judges Thomas Kirsch and Candace Jackson-Akiwumi concurred.

The case is Marcus Conner v. Dennis Reagle, Warden, 22-1780.

Court of Appeals
of Indiana

Sept. 7

David Yount and Susan Yount v. Carpenter Co. Inc. d/b/a Carpenter Realtors, Janet Stitt, and Patsy L. Coffey

23A-PL-116

Motion to compel was ‘close enough to a wash’ that sanction award wasn’t warranted

A trial court’s order for two people to pay expenses related to a discovery dispute wasn’t warranted because the defendants’ underlying motion to compel wasn’t completely successful, the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled in a reversal.

David and Susan Yount bought property in Brown County and later sued the realtors in the transaction, accusing them of fraud, deception and breach of contract. They claimed the realtors made misrepresentations about dock access, water access, the property boundary and a surveyor location report.

The realtors sent the Younts 39 requests for admission and 17 requests for production. The Younts answered eight of the requests for admission and objected to the other 31.

Counsel for the parties resolved some of the contested items, but not all.

The realtors moved to compel answers to 18 of the requests for admission and responses to three of the requests for production.

Requests for admission included asking the Younts to admit or deny that the person who sold them the property “told” the realtors certain information. The Younts objected to the requests on the basis that they called for “speculation” about the statements, knowledge and reliance of others, and therefore they couldn’t “truthfully admit or deny the matter.”

They also objected to other requests for admission on the basis that they weren’t qualified to opine on the meaning and applicability of a state statute.

Requests for production included asking the Younts to produce invoices, payment records, and time and billing records for their attorney fees. They objected on the basis that the requests were premature.

The Brown Circuit Court granted the realtors’ motion to compel in large part, ordering the Younts to respond to all but three requests.

The Younts complied and responded to the requests.

The realtors then moved for sanctions under Trial Rule 37(A)(4), arguing the Younts’ objections to the discovery requests had not been “substantially justified.”

The trial court ordered the Younts to pay the realtors $900 for the 6.2 hours counsel spent on the discovery dispute at a rate of $175 per hour.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed in part with both parties but ultimately ruled that because the realtors weren’t completely successful in their motion to compel, reversal of the trial court’s sanction order was warranted.

The Younts argued they were substantially justified in objecting to both the factual and legal theory requests.

Addressing the factual requests, the appellate court ruled the Younts’ responses were “entirely appropriate.” That’s because, as they argued, they weren’t required to answer requests because they couldn’t know what the seller told the realtors.

“Defendants could have used alternative discovery tools, such as depositions (Trial Rules 30 and 31) or interrogatories (Trial Rule 33), to discover what Plaintiffs knew or didn’t know about the statements, knowledge, and actions of other people,” the opinion says.

But objections to the legal theory requests weren’t substantially justified, the Court of Appeals ruled, because Trial Rule 36 “permits a request for admission regarding an opinion, a contention, or a legal conclusion, if the request is related to the facts of the case,” citing Gen. Motors Corp., Chevrolet Motor Div. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 573 N.E.2d 885, 888 (Ind. 1991).

The Younts also argued their objections to the requests for attorney fee documents were proper, but the Court of Appeals disagreed.

“Because Plaintiffs expressly sought an award of attorney’s fees in their complaint, the documents sought in these requests are unquestionably relevant to the subject matter of this case,” the opinion says.

Still, the Court of Appeals ruled the trial court’s sanction order wasn’t appropriate, considering the realtors prevailed on 11 of the discovery requests and the Younts prevailed on 10.

“That is close enough to a wash that an award of expenses to Defendants is unwarranted,” the opinion says.

Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote the opinion. Judges Paul Mathias and Rudolph Pyle concurred.

The case is David Yount and Susan Yount v. Carpenter Co. Inc. d/b/a Carpenter Realtors, Janet Stitt, and Patsy L. Coffey, 23A-PL-116.

Calvin Carl Edward Burton v. State of Indiana

23A-CR-526

Defendant received fair trial despite prejudicial statements in front of jurors, COA affirms

The Court of Appeals of Indiana relied on controlling precedent to affirm a lower court’s ruling that three prospective Cass County jurors could remain fair and impartial even after they heard prejudicial statements made against a defendant in a marijuana dealing case.

The case began on May 11, 2021, when deputies with the Cass County Sheriff’s Department stopped a white Chevrolet Tahoe for speeding. Calvin Burton was in the vehicle’s passenger seat.

Deputies conducted a dog sniff of the car, and the dog alerted them to the presence of drugs. A search of the car revealed a large amount of marijuana.

Burton and the driver were both arrested. Deputies then searched Burton’s home and found a large amount of marijuana and $10,000 in cash.

The state charged Burton with Level 6 felony dealing in marijuana and alleged he was a habitual offender.

A Cass Circuit Court jury trial was held in January 2023.

On the first day of trial, after several rounds of voir dire, five jurors had been selected. The trial court took a break, and the seated jurors were sent to the jury room to wait.

Two of the jurors began speaking, with one saying that he recognized Burton’s name, that Burton had caused “a car wreck 20 years ago that killed a gentleman” and that Burton “should be sitting in prison.”

Upon being alerted to those remarks, the court twice questioned each seated juror individually. One of the jurors, Tim Carmichael, acknowledged he made a statement about Burton’s involvement in a fatal car accident.

Another juror was in the restroom at the time and did not hear the remarks, but the other three jurors all stated they had heard at least some portion of the conversation.

The court and parties agreed to strike Carmichael for cause. Defense counsel also asked the court to strike the three jurors who had heard Carmichael’s remarks for cause.

At that point, Burton could not use peremptory challenges on those three jurors because the trial court was using a voir dire procedure that required the parties to exercise challenges after each round of questioning, and any prospective juror not stricken would be accepted and not subject to further challenge.

The court ultimately denied defense counsel’s motion to strike the jurors for cause and did not allow the use of peremptory challenges. Defense counsel then moved for a mistrial, which was also denied.

Voir dire continued, and seven jurors were eventually empaneled, including the three who had heard Carmichael’s comments.

Following the trial, the jury found Burton guilty as charged and he admitted to being a habitual offender. He was then sentenced to an aggregate of 8½ years in prison.

Burton appealed, contending his constitutional rights to an impartial jury were violated. But the Court of Appeals affirmed, finding no reversible error.

Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote the opinion for the appellate court.

According to Vaidik, in arguing the trial court erred in denying his motion to strike, Burton emphasized the prejudicial nature of Carmichael’s comments, noting he accused Burton of causing someone’s death and stated he “should be sitting in prison.”

The appellate court agreed that those statements were prejudicial.

“The court could have easily stricken these prospective jurors and continued voir dire with the remaining members of the jury panel, or at least allowed Burton to use his peremptory challenges as the State suggested. It did neither,” Vaidik wrote. “Given the constitutional interests at stake here, these would have been better courses of action.”

But the COA also pointed to Kindred v. State, 524 N.E.2d 279 (Ind. 1988), in which the Indiana Supreme Court rejected an impartial jury challenge involving “arguably worse facts.”

In Kindred, during voir dire, a prospective juror stated, in front of other prospective jurors, that she was aware the defendant had previously escaped from jail. The defendant asked the court to strike all those who heard the comment, but the trial court denied the motion.

The COA determined it was constrained in Burton’s case by Kindred.

“As in Kindred, the trial court here questioned the prospective jurors about Carmichael’s comments and received confirmation from each that they could set aside the comments and render a fair and impartial verdict,” Vaidik wrote. “As such, we find no reversible error.”

Judges L. Mark Bailey and Paul Mathias concurred in Calvin Carl Edward Burton v. State of Indiana, 23A-CR-526.

Sept. 14

In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: M.T. v. Community Health Network

23A-MH-341

Review of expired commitment order not moot, COA rules

The negative collateral consequences a patient potentially faces from an involuntary temporary commitment order makes review of an expired order “meaningful” and not moot, the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled, though it ultimately affirmed the commitment on the merits.

M.T., who has a history of mental illness and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, has lived with his parents since July 2022. During that time, he didn’t take his prescribed medication, and his behavior got worse — including not sleeping for days on end and not eating regularly.

In January, M.T. took his mother’s phone and ran away from the house. He didn’t have identification or money, and his family went out to search for him.

Eventually, M.T. appeared at a pizzeria and told staff he hit his head and was confused. M.T. was then transported to a nearby emergency department, where doctors were unable to identify a physical injury.

He was moved to Fairbanks Behavioral Health within the Community Health Network.

There, Dr. Ishrat Bhat examined M.T. and diagnosed him with schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and catatonia. Bhat’s diagnosis was based on M.T.’s previous hospitalizations — including one in 2022, when his medical records indicated schizophrenia — as well as Bhat’s own observations.

Bhat concluded that, due to M.T.’s mental illness, he was unable to provide himself with food, clothing, shelter and other essential needs.

Community Health then petitioned for M.T.’s involuntary temporary commitment to reestablish his routine with prescription medication. The Marion Superior Court found M.T. was gravely disabled and granted Community Health’s petition.

M.T. appealed, and on April 24, about a week before his initial brief was due, his 90-day term of commitment expired.

M.T. argued that the order for his involuntary temporary commitment, if invalid but left in place, would add to the history of hospitalizations on his medical record and make future involuntary commitment proceedings against him more likely to be successful. The Court of Appeals agreed, concluding “this negative collateral consequence M.T. potentially faces makes our review of his involuntary temporary commitment order meaningful and not moot.”

The Court of Appeals cited In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: C.P. v. St. Vincent Hospital and Health Care Center, Inc. d.b.a. St. Vincent Stress Center, 22A-MH-2960, a Court of Appeals opinion issued the same day by the same panel.

In C.P., the court held that an appeal from an expired involuntary civil commitment order was not moot and was properly before the court “based on the negative collateral consequences that that respondent may face under federal and state firearm restrictions that accompany involuntary civil commitment orders.”

“M.T.’s involuntary civil commitment order carries at least one similar and significant negative collateral consequence. We have long recognized that a ‘history of mental illness requiring hospitalizations’ may be probative of whether a person is ‘gravely disabled and should be involuntarily committed,’” the opinion says, citing Golub v. Giles, 814 N.E.2d 1034 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004).

A respondent’s history of being committed might contribute to a future adverse finding that they should be committed again, the Court of Appeals ruled.

“That consequence, which is adequately developed in the record and in the briefing here, is sufficient to place M.T.’s appeal from his expired involuntary civil commitment order within Indiana’s case law that such appeals are not moot under the collateral-consequences doctrine,” the opinion says.

Bhat’s testimony in support of the commitment petition proves the point, the Court of Appeals ruled, because he emphasized M.T.’s previous hospitalizations.

Community Health argued the court’s holding that M.T.’s appeal is meaningful and not moot is contrary to the Indiana Supreme Court’s opinion in E.F. v. St. Vincent Hosp. & Health Care Ctr., Inc., 188 N.E.3d 464 (Ind. 2022). In E.F., the Supreme Court said any possible collateral-consequences analysis in temporary-commitment appeals was “left open.”

“Community Health interprets that language to mean that in fact any such analysis was closed shut,” the opinion says. “We think that, if our Supreme Court had intended that outcome, it would have explicitly said so.”

Still, in addressing the merits of the appeal, the Court of Appeals ruled Community Health presented sufficient evidence to support M.T.’s temporary commitment.

“A reasonable fact-finder could conclude from those facts that M.T. was gravely disabled,” the opinion says. “And M.T.’s arguments to the contrary on appeal simply seek to have this Court reweigh the evidence, which we will not do.”

Judge Paul Mathias wrote the opinion. Judges Nancy Vaidik and Rudolph Pyle concurred.

The case is In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of: M.T. v. Community Health Network, 23A-MH-341.

Sept. 20

Autumn B. Stahl v. State of Indiana

23A-CR-143

No error in rejecting insanity defense from woman who tried to drown child, COA affirms

A jury wasn’t wrong in rejecting an insanity defense from a woman who stabbed a man and attempted to drown her 6-week-old child, the Court of Appeals of Indiana has affirmed.

Appellant-defendant Autumn Stahl began dating Stephen Blair in 2016 and gave birth to three children during the course of their relationship. The youngest, A.A., was born in June 2020.

Blair moved out of the home they shared in July 2020 because of issues with the relationship. The following month, Stahl visited Blair at a house he was renovating, and Blair noticed she was “acting weird.”

Blair was concerned and went to Stahl’s home, where he found some of the children in the bathtub. Stahl asked him to give the children a bath and took A.A. into the bedroom.

Blair then noticed a burning smell and saw Stahl sitting on the bed rocking A.A. about three feet from a burning pillow.

Blair threw the pillow outside, and Stahl walked to the kitchen with A.A. There, she turned on the stove’s gas burners, but Blair turned them off.

Stahl then turned on the kitchen sink faucet and put her thumb inside of A.A.’s mouth to hold it open and placed the child’s face under the running water.

Blair got Stahl to the ground, but she stabbed him in the neck with a knife and continued to drown A.A. while Blair went to the front door to call for help.

Neighbors came and helped remove the other children. One neighbor saw Stahl trying to drown A.A. and asked her to hand the child over, which she did. A.A. survived.

Stahl told a detective during a subsequent interview that she hadn’t slept in eight days leading up to the incident and that she had no support. She also said she hadn’t been “in her right mind” during the incident and never intended to hurt Blair or any of her children.

Stahl was charged Level 3 felony attempted aggravated battery, Level 5 felony battery with a deadly weapon, Level 3 felony aggravated battery, Level 6 felony domestic battery and two counts of Level 6 felony neglect of a dependent.

She was subsequently admitted to Parkview Behavioral Health, where she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis.

Stahl’s attorney filed a notice of defense of mental disease or defect and a motion for a psychiatric evaluation to determine her sanity or insanity at the time of the offenses. The Koskiusko Superior Court granted the motion and appointed a psychiatrist and a psychologist to examine Stahl.

The psychologist and psychiatrist both concluded Stahl “suffer[ed] from mental disease or defect which render[ed] her unable to sufficiently appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct at the time of the alleged offenses.”

But a jury rejected Stahl’s insanity defense and found her guilty but mentally ill of all but Level 3 aggravated battery and the second count of Level 6 neglect of a dependent.

She was sentenced to a nine-year aggregate term.

On appeal, Stahl argued the jury erred in rejecting her insanity defense. She also argued there was insufficient evidence to support her Level 3 and Level 5 felony convictions.

The Court of Appeals disagreed.

Addressing the insanity defense, the appellate court ruled a reasonable jury could have inferred Stahl was able to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct at the time of the offenses. Although the psychologist and psychiatrist concluded Stahl suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time of the offenses, the Court of Appeals noted the separate evaluations were done 10 months and more than a year after the incident.

Next addressing the sufficiency of the evidence, Stahl appeared to argue there was insufficient evidence to support the “substantial risk of death” element of the attempted aggravated battery conviction.

But, “Here, based on common sense and everyday living, the jury could have reasonably inferred that when Stahl held open her six-week-old son’s mouth and placed his face under a faucet of running water, she engaged in conduct that constituted a substantial step toward knowingly or intentionally inflicting an injury on the infant that created a substantial risk of death,” the opinion says.

For the Level 5 battery conviction, Stahl argued there was insufficient evidence that the knife she used to stab Blair was a deadly weapon. But “(t)he fact that Stahl’s knife hit a fatty area of Blair’s neck and happened to miss a crucial organ or blood vessel does not alter the life-threatening nature of the weapon,” the opinion says.

Judge Rudolph Pyle wrote the opinion in Autumn B. Stahl v. State of Indiana, 23A-CR-143.•