Articles

Fishers wants to ban vaping in city parks

An Indianapolis suburb wants to ban vaping in its parks, where cigars, cigarettes and pipes are already prohibited. A proposed ordinance drafted by Fishers’ parks department will go before its city council Tuesday night. It states that the proposed ban is “in the spirit of promoting a culture of health and positive example for youth.”

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Rethinking bail: Pretrial release and apps among trends here and nationwide

The drumbeat to reexamine the practice of cash bail in Indiana and nationally has grown louder in recent years as jails groan under the weight of overpopulation. A court pilot program in Indiana assesses risk while a private initiative in New York uses computing power to raise money to pay bail for nonviolent arrestees.

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Hamilton County Jail adds re-entry, jobs program

The jail’s five-week Transitioning Opportunities for Work, Education, and Reality program, known as TOWER, began in April as a partnership with a state WorkOne Center to provide resources for soon-to-be-released inmates. The goal is to reduce the rate of inmates’ returning to the county jail.

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COA recommends judge’s recusal in remand of motion to contest adoption

In a 41-page opinion handed down Thursday, the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a putative father’s motion to contest adoption, finding that the adoptive parents had caused delays in the court proceedings and also noting that the judge in the case should have recused himself to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

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Tax Court reverses educational property tax exemption

The Indiana Tax Court has reversed an educational property tax exemption for a Carmel day care after finding that the land’s owner failed to properly compare the total time the property was used for educational purposes against the total time the day care utilized the land.

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COA dismisses request to make trial court order final

The Indiana Court of Appeals has dismissed a mother’s request to characterize an order ending her parent-child relationship as a final order, writing that she still had to option of appealing the trial court’s decision through interlocutory appeal.

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3 conservative groups challenge RFRA ‘fix,’ human rights ordinances

After a nearly 4½-hour hearing during which they argued the constitutionality of their local human rights ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, four Indiana cities are waiting to learn if a Hamilton Superior Court judge will dismiss a suit challenging the ordinances.

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