Articles

7th Circuit upholds qualified immunity

The Department of Correction’s religious director was entitled to qualified immunity on a complaint alleging he violated two Jewish plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by failing to delay their transfer to a facility that did not offer Jewish group worship services, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday.

Read More

COA throws out handgun, driving with suspended license convictions

After determining an inventory search of a man’s car was actually investigatory in nature, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned Monday the man’s conviction of possession of a handgun without a license. The court also threw out the man’s conviction of driving with a suspended license for lack of evidence.

Read More

Hill moves to intervene in case restricting local ICE detentions

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill has filed a motion to intervene in a federal immigration case after a district court judge entered a consent decree barring the Marion County Sheriff’s Office from detaining illegal immigrants for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a warrant or probable cause. The decree implicates the state’s ability to enforce its own statutes, Hill argued, thus creating the need for the state to intervene and file an appeal.

Read More

7th Circuit upholds Armed Career Criminal Act sentence

An Indiana man sentenced to 15 years under the Armed Criminal Career Act has lost his appeal of his sentence after the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals determined he met the requirements of three prior violent offenses to warrant the Act’s mandatory 15-year minimum.

Read More

Citing civil forfeiture ruling, trial court returns seized property

Nearly four months after a district court judge struck down portions of Indiana’s civil forfeiture statute as unconstitutional, the effects of that decision are now being felt in Indiana’s trial courts, where a judge has ordered the return of seized property pursuant to the district court’s ruling.

Read More

Civil Rights Commission’s $96K discrimination award upheld

The Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld a nearly $100,000 judgment in favor of a black man who claims he was subject to discriminatory practices by his former employer after ruling the Indiana Civil Rights Commission’s finding in favor of the man was not invalid or void.

Read More

Charitable exemption for Starke County nonprofit upheld

A Starke County mental health non-profit was properly awarded a partial charitable exemption on its real property because the nonprofit provides a public benefit and lessens the government’s burden of addressing mental health issues, the Indiana Tax Court ruled Friday.

Read More

Huntington judge faces sex-based harassment suit

A longtime judge in Huntington County at the center of a separate recent controversy has been sued by a county employee who alleges she was the victim of the judge’s “campaign of sex-based harassment, discrimination, and retaliation” that “created a hostile and oppressive workplace environment.”

Read More

Portage officials mull suing US Steel

Officials of a northern Indiana city have condemned U.S. Steel’s silence over an October spill of a potentially carcinogenic chemical into a Lake Michigan tributary.

Read More