A new law should erase a “jurisdictional gap” that has allowed people who commit offenses before their 18th birthday to essentially avoid legal consequences as long as charges weren’t filed until after they turned 21.
Read More
Since March 2020, attorney Kathryn DiNardo has taken up dozens of cases through the Indiana Federal Community Defenders from inmates hoping to be released early because of the pandemic. Those cases are but a drop in the bucket of inmates who have applied for compassionate release, and a July ruling from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has seemingly further dwindled their chances of success.
Read More
With a total two-year appropriation of $6 million from the state, the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council is working with local prosecuting offices to establish 10 high-tech crime units that will be able to process and analyze digital evidence collected by law enforcement starting in 2022.
Read More
A one-year-old law is before the Indiana Court of Appeals, which is considering whether the Legislature properly placed restrictions on when defense attorneys can take a deposition of a minor child alleged to be a victim of a sex crime.
Read More
Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush appointed three new members to the court’s Commission on Court Appointed Attorneys, which plays an important role in establishing the state’s public defense infrastructure.
Indiana’s trial courts use largely individually set, unwritten methodologies to decide who’s poor enough for publicly funded legal defense, the state has found.
An almost 50-year-old requirement that Marion County employees live in Indianapolis is creating staffing problems for some city agencies, but councilors on the City-County Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee voted 6-5 against changing the rule.
Attorneys who serve under the judicial branch’s Defender Services program were informed earlier this year that funding would soon dry up well ahead of the end of the fiscal year.
Beginning next month — and for the first time in nearly 30 years — nine Indiana counties will enjoy partial state reimbursement for spending on public defenders for destitute Hoosiers accused of misdemeanors.
The attorney has been charged with crimes that include vicarious sexual gratification with a minor under 14, child exploitation, dissemination of matter harmful to minors and child solicitation.
About two weeks away from scheduled execution, Indiana death row inmate Joseph Corcoran’s last-ditch attempts to quash his capital punishment sentence are still up in the air.
Counsel for Benjamin Ritchie, a man convicted in 2002 of murdering Beech Grove Police Officer William Toney, have until Nov. 1 to file a clemency request in response to the state’s motion to set an execution date, Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush wrote in an Oct. 3 order.
Indiana’s counties collectively earn hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from the federal government in child welfare-related public defense reimbursements — but could earn more if all 92 chose to take part.
The increasing cost of public defenders for misdemeanor cases is each county’s own problem. Indiana hasn’t reimbursed for those services in nearly three decades. That’s about to change.
The Indiana Supreme Court issued an advisory opinion Thursday morning outlining how public defenders can efficiently navigate limited representation while representing a defendant at an initial hearing.
The Indiana Supreme Court is explaining its reasoning for reinstating the defense team of the man accused in the 2017 Delphi murder case, crafting a new rule for determining when a judge can remove a court-appointed attorney.
State statute authorizes trial courts to retain cash bail for the payment of public defender fees, but an indigency hearing is required before the cash can be retained for most other fines, fees and costs.
Mere hours after hearing arguments in a dispute between the man accused of killing two teen girls from Delphi and the judge who removed his attorneys over his objection, the Indiana Supreme Court issued an order reinstating the man’s legal team.
The Indiana Supreme Court issued an order Monday reappointing State Public Defender Amy E. Karozos. Karozos will serve a second four-year term beginning Jan. 13, 2024, with the term expiring on Jan. 13, 2028.
A man’s displeasure with his appointed counsel in a manslaughter case did not require a trial court to replace the public defender the morning of a sentencing hearing, the Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed Wednesday.
After a nearly two-year pilot program, the Marion County Early Intervention Team and the Indiana Public Defender Commission say the initiative has shown promising early results.
The trial for an Indiana man charged in the killings of two teenage girls slain in 2017 during a hiking trip was moved Tuesday from January to next October after the presiding judge told the suspect she will not allow his former attorneys to represent him.
Indiana’s legal community is raising alarms about a statewide shortage of attorneys that has already led to barren courtrooms leaving hundreds of Hoosiers unrepresented.
The trial for an Indiana man charged in the killings of two teenage girls is expected to be delayed after his defense attorneys withdrew from the case Thursday amid questions about security of evidence.