Home » Authors » Michael W. Hoskins

Michael W. Hoskins

Articles

Indiana Black Expo offers look at legal world

Visitors to the Indiana Black Expo this weekend will have a chance to see how being a lawyer is cool.Aside from games, giveaways, and the usual expo events, mock trials will be part of the Indianapolis Bar Association’s booth during the final weekend of this year’s expo, which is Friday through Sunday.For two hours each afternoon, teens from Reach for Youth’s Teen Court program will conduct the mock trials, serving as judge, jury, attorneys, and the accused. Audience participation will also…

Read More

Court criticizes appellate attorney for not citing material

The Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court’s decision that a man convicted of felony forgery must submit a DNA sample.But that’s only part of today’s seven-page decision in James Keeney v. State of Indiana, No. 21A01-0611-CR-495, which goes on to admonish an appellate attorney who filed a brief with uncited material.In this case, Keeney challenged last year Fayette Circuit Judge Daniel Pflum’s order, which said Keeney needed to submit a DNA sample after pleading guilty to forgery and…

Read More

Former lawmaker, public defender champion dies

A former state senator who’d served the legal community as a public defender and lobbyist for the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association has died.Robert Hellmann, D-Terre Haute, died late last week at his home after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 60.Once minority leader in the Indiana Senate, Hellman had been a part of state government since the early 1980s. He was a member of the House of Representatives for four years before being elected to the Senate in 1986, where…

Read More

Justices grant two transfers

The Indiana Supreme Court has decided to consider whether trial courts can order restitution without determining a defendant’s ability to pay, and an annexation case involving land in Boone County.Justices granted transfer this week in Brenwick Associates LLC, First Industrial Acquisitions Inc., and Town of Whitestown, Indiana v. Boone County Redevelopment Commission and the Board of Commissioners of Boone County, Indiana, No. 06A04-0611-CV-682; and Jeffrey Pearson v. State of Indiana, No. 45A03-0610-CR-507.In Brenwick, the court will get involved in a land dispute involving…

Read More

Justices will consider corporal punishment case

The Indiana Supreme Court will take up the issue of a mother’s authority to discipline her child by applying corporal punishment, paving the way for justices to analyze the legal line between parental control and child battery.Justices granted transfer Wednesday in Sophia Willis v. State of Indiana, No. 49A02-06110-CR-982, which the Indiana Court of Appeals had decided May 17. Appellate judges affirmed the Marion Superior Court judgment finding sufficient evidence to convict Willis, mother of an 11-year-old, of misdemeanor child battery…

Read More

Former Allen County judge dies

Allen County has lost a former judge who served with distinction in the military’s legal arm in the 1950s and returned to serve the county’s legal community for four decades as an attorney and jurist.Senior Allen Superior Judge Vern E. Sheldon, who retired in 1998 after more than a decade on the bench, died in his home Sunday after a short illness. He was 77.Judge Sheldon was appointed to the bench in 1985 and elected in 1990, then re-elected without opposition…

Read More

Marion judges choose court administrator

An Indianapolis law firm partner who has led three state agencies is the new administrator for Marion County courts. On Monday, the four-judge executive committee chose Glenn R. Lawrence to fill the position, which has been vacant since the former administrator Ron Miller resigned in late March. Since then, Senior Judge Richard Good has been filling in as interim administrator.The committee offered Lawrence the $93,500-salary job Monday afternoon, according to presiding Superior Judge Gerald Zore. Judges had received about 20 applications…

Read More

Second lobbyist leaves Indianapolis-based firm

Indianapolis-based Barnes & Thornburgh has lost two of its lobbyists who have been linked to a congressional bribery and corruption scandal surrounding jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff.Kevin A. Ring resigned Friday from the Washington, D.C., office, managing partner Alan Levin said. This comes more than a year after another lobbyist, Neil Volz, severed his ties with the firm ;s Washington office.The resignation comes amid an ongoing corruption investigation with congressional ties, and Ring ;s background working at Abramoff ;s law firm in…

Read More

Judge: Wine shipping law unconstitutional

Indiana’s law prohibiting out-of-state wineries from shipping to Hoosier customers without face-to-face contact is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Indianapolis has ruled.U.S. District Judge John D. Tinder issued a 71-page decision http://www.insd.uscourts.gov/News/Baude.pdf, and a separate four-page judgment http://www.insd.uscourts.gov/News/BaudeJudgment.pdf and injunction late Wednesday in Patrick L. Baude et al. v. David L. Heath and Wine and Sprits Wholesalers of Indiana, No. 1:05-cv-0735-JDT-TAB.At issue in this case was whether state statute involving direct wine shipment violated the out-of-state wineries rights by barring them…

Read More