Indiana Court of Appeals
Xavier Wesley Day v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)
19A-CR-2997
Criminal. Affirms Xavier Day’s 40-year sentence for conviction of Level 1 felony murder. Finds the St. Joseph Superior Court did not commit fundamental error in instructing the jury.
The Supreme Court of the United States is siding with two Catholic schools in a ruling that underscores that certain employees of religious schools, hospitals and social service centers can’t sue for employment discrimination. The high court’s ruling on Wednesday was 7-2.
The United States Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Trump administration in its effort to allow employers who cite religious or moral objections to opt out of providing no-cost birth control to women as required by the Affordable Care Act.
Read Indiana appellate court decisions from the most recent reporting period.
A woman who learned years after she had been told that a hepatitis test was negative that in fact the test had come back positive had her case reinstated June 26 by the majority of an Indiana Court of Appeals panel. Two of three judges found a clinic fraudulently concealed the woman’s positive test result.
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Monwell Douglas v. Faith Reeves
18‐2588
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Terre Haute Division.
Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson.
Civil. Affirms the Indiana Southern District Court’s grant of summary judgment to Faith Reeves against Monwell Douglas, an Indiana prisoner who claimed Reeves retaliated against him for activity protected by the First Amendment. Finds no reasonable jury could conclude that Reeves inflicted deprivations on Douglas likely to deter a person of ordinary firmness from engaging in First Amendment activity.
An Indiana prisoner whose discipline conviction was overturned for lack of evidence did not persuade the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that his case manager later retaliated against him for activity protected by the First Amendment.
A man convicted in a drug conspiracy could not convince the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that he pleaded guilty to a lesser amount than what the government indicted him for.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed a northern Indiana woman’s felony conviction for assisting her godson after he murdered his teenage girlfriend, finding she did so with the intent to hinder his punishment.
A divided Indiana Supreme Court has sided with an appellate judge’s dissent in a drug dealing case, lowering a woman’s decades-long sentence pursuant to Appellate Rule 7(B).
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a 1991 law that bars robocalls to cellphones. Six justices agreed that by allowing debt collection calls to cellphones, Congress “impermissibly favored debt-collection speech over political and other speech, in violation of the First Amendment.”
Indiana Court of Appeals
Robert Shorter v. State of Indiana
19A-CR-2904
Criminal. Affirms Robert Shorter’s convictions for Level 2 felony dealing in methamphetamine, Level 3 felony dealing in a narcotic drug, Level 3 felony conspiracy to commit dealing in a narcotic drug and Level 3 felony aiding, inducing or causing dealing in methamphetamine. Finds that the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions. Also finds no error in the admission of evidence that would violate the Fourth Amendment or Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. Judge Rudolph Pyle dissents with separate opinion.
A divided appellate court has affirmed a man’s drug dealing and conspiracy convictions despite disagreement among the panel as to whether admitted evidence found during a warrantless arrest should have been excluded.
An appellate panel has granted a man’s petition for rehearing, but only to correct a factual error it made in its original decision in his case.
A Terre Haute law firm is owed no additional money from one of its former clients, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Monday in an attorney fees lawsuit involving former Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock and his campaign committee.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily stayed an execution scheduled for next week after finding that two issues raised by a Terre Haute inmate were “worthy of further exploration.” Wesley Ira Purkey’s execution was scheduled for July 15, but now it will be stayed “pending the completion of proceedings in the Seventh Circuit.”
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states can require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the Electoral College. The ruling, just under four months before the 2020 election, leaves in place laws in 32 states and the District of Columbia that bind electors to vote for the popular-vote winner, and […]
The number of abortions performed in Indiana fell by about 5% last year, according to a new state health department report.
Indiana Court of Appeals
Thomas R. Ysursa and Becker, Hoerner, Thompson & Ysursa, P.C. v. Frontier Professional Baseball, Inc.
20A-CT-49
Civil tort. Affirms the Marion Superior Commercial Court’s denial of the Ysursa parties’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit asserting legal malpractice over its involvement in litigation stemming from a failed bid to locate a Frontier Professional Baseball League team in Kokomo. Finds the commercial court did not err in finding there were sufficient minimum contacts between Ysursa and Indiana to establish personal jurisdiction, and the ruling was not unreasonable.
U.S. Supreme Court justices rejected a third Indiana abortion case on Thursday, refusing to hear a petition filed against an embattled South Bend abortion clinic that was permitted by a federal judge to open last summer.