Indiana prosecutors have charged a couple with abandoning their adopted daughter in 2013 and moving to Canada, renting an apartment in Lafayette for the then-11-year-old girl but otherwise leaving her to fend for herself. Prosecutors in Tippecanoe County filed neglect charges Wednesday against 45-year-old Kristine Elizabeth Barnett and 43-year-old Michael Barnett.
Although the state was able to get a trial court to reconsider the suppression of cellphone evidence in a rape trial, it could not convince the Indiana Court of Appeals that its pursuit of an interlocutory appeal was timely.
Every fall, judicial representatives from several Indiana counties travel to the Statehouse to make the same plea: Our caseloads are growing and our litigants are waiting, the judges tell lawmakers. We need more help, and we need your permission to get it.
A man who was sentenced to six months in prison after refusing to testify at a theft and conspiracy trial has failed to convince the Indiana Court of Appeals to overturn the contempt finding against him.
Though there was sufficient evidence to uphold an attempted murder conviction after a Tippecanoe County driveway shooting, the conviction was nevertheless reversed Friday on double jeopardy grounds.
Even though the Indiana Department of Transportation declined to install a traffic signal at a Tippecanoe County intersection where a deadly crash later occurred, the Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld summary judgment for the department, finding it was immune from liability under the Indiana Tort Claims Act.
A man’s attempted murder conviction for shooting at a sheriff’s lieutenant while drunk was upheld by the Indiana Court of Appeals, which also vacated his felony intimidation conviction as double jeopardy.
A Lafayette attorney alleging a Tippecanoe County magistrate defamed him by reporting he was carrying a firearm in court in violation of state law lost his appeal of the dismissal of his defamation case when the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded the magistrate was acting within her judicial capacity.
A 24-year-old Evansville man convicted of two counts each of murder and robbery for killing two people has avoided a life sentence but still could spend his remaining years in prison. Tippecanoe Superior Judge Randy Williams ruled Friday a life sentence for Deshay Hackner would contradict the penal system’s goals of rehabilitation.
Jurors have deadlocked on whether to recommend a sentence of life in prison for a 24-year-old Evansville man convicted of murder and robbery in the 2017 slayings of two people in southwest Indiana. Jurors were dismissed Thursday after deadlocking on the question. They convicted Deshay Hackner on Wednesday in the deaths of 29-year-old Dewone Broomfield and his girlfriend, 28-year-old Mary Woodruff.
A bill requesting an additional magistrate judge to handle an increasing number of cases filed in Howard County was approved by the full Senate on Monday. That bill now joins several other counties’ similar requests for judicial help making their way to the governor’s desk.
A mother whose kids were found to be children in need of services despite her successful efforts to stay sober and get the help she needed found favor with an appellate panel Monday, who reversed the CHINS adjudication on the basis of insufficient evidence.
Several bills seeking extra judicial assistance for Indiana counties struggling under overburdened caseloads have successfully made their cases to both legislative chambers. With that approval secured, the next stop is the governor’s desk.
In granting a petition for rehearing Thursday, the Indiana Court of Appeals explicitly came down against using juveniles' nonadjudicated contacts with the criminal justice system as an aggravating factor in future sentencing. However, in light of other evidence of the petitioner’s criminal history, the court reaffirmed its prior decision to uphold a man’s sentence.
The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a trial court and gave a Tippecanoe County man one day of credit, finding the rule of lenity required it to interpret the ambiguous sentencing statute in the defendant’s favor.
An anti-abortion group’s advertisement depicting a growing fetus is being allowed on public buses in a northwestern Indiana city following the settlement of a free speech lawsuit. Court documents filed Monday show Lafayette’s public bus service, CityBus, agreed to run Tippecanoe County Right to Life’s ad on a bus for up to 16 months.
Two of four House measures in the Senate that would bring judicial relief to some Indiana counties were given the go-ahead to proceed Wednesday, but two other bills have yet to move forward.
Several counties looking for additional judicial help may get what they are hoping for, now that measures authorizing the positions are moving toward passage in the Indiana legislature.
The Indiana Tax Court has upheld a 26 percent increase in a home valuation after finding that the homeowners failed to properly rebut the removal of an obsolescence adjustment.
Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court decided in a 3-2 vote last week to let stand a ruling that an insurance company owes no duty to victims of a truck crash in which the driver knowingly operated the vehicle with faulty brakes.