Background
Sixteen-year-old T.M. faced two Gibson County delinquency cases after violent incidents involving family members. In April 2025, he strangled his brother during an argument and repeatedly struck his stepfather when the stepfather intervened. The State alleged conduct that would have constituted Level 6 felony strangulation and two counts of Class A misdemeanor domestic battery if committed by an adult. In June, after drinking alcohol, T.M. shoved his sister. The State then alleged conduct equivalent to Level 6 felony domestic battery resulting in moderate bodily injury and Class C misdemeanor consumption of alcohol by a minor.
The State initially dismissed both cases because T.M. was scheduled to enter Hoosier Youth Academy and could not attend with pending charges. It moved to reopen them after he ran away from the academy. T.M. admitted the allegations in September 2025. By the dispositional hearings, he was living with Magen Coates, the mother of a friend. While there, he worked on coping and emotional-regulation skills, completed missed schoolwork, participated in therapy, volunteered at the Evansville Rescue Mission, and sought employment. Probation tried to locate a residential facility, but providers declined him because of the severity of his mental-health needs and medications.
The juvenile court repeatedly continued disposition while T.M. made progress and probation explored treatment. At the final hearing, T.M. and Coates urged continued placement with her, while T.M.’s mother and probation recommended the Department of Correction. The court concluded that Coates was not a legally viable placement because she was neither T.M.’s guardian nor a party under the court’s jurisdiction. Believing its choices were effectively limited, the court committed T.M. to the DOC. He appealed, arguing that the commitment was not the least restrictive available disposition.
The Court’s Holding
The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. Judge DeBoer explained that the juvenile court abused its discretion because its placement decision rested on a misreading of Indiana Code section 31-37-19-6. That statute permits a dispositional decree to remove a child from the child’s home and place the child in another home. It also expressly permits an award of wardship to a person other than the Department of Child Services or another agency.
Coates qualified as a “person,” and her residence qualified as “another home” under the statute. She did not first have to become T.M.’s guardian or a party before the juvenile court could consider placing him with her and awarding her wardship. Any placement would still have to be consistent with community safety and T.M.’s best interests, and statutory prerequisites such as criminal-background checks would have to be satisfied. The appellate court did not decide those factual questions because the juvenile court had never reached them.
The legal mistake mattered. The record showed that T.M. had lived with Coates for several months and reported concrete progress at each of four dispositional hearings. The juvenile court itself continued the proceedings three times in part to allow that progress to continue. Because the court incorrectly excluded Coates’s home from the available options, the appellate panel was not confident it would have selected DOC commitment under a correct understanding of the statute. The panel therefore reversed the commitment and directed the juvenile court to determine whether placement with Coates would protect the community and serve T.M.’s best interests.
Key Takeaways
- Indiana Code section 31-37-19-6 allows a delinquent child to be placed in another home and made the ward of a person who is not already the child’s guardian or a party to the case.
- A proposed nonparent placement remains subject to community-safety, best-interest, background-check, and other statutory requirements; the decision does not guarantee placement.
- A juvenile disposition is an abuse of discretion when a misunderstanding of the available statutory options materially narrows the court’s choice.
- Evidence of sustained progress in a community placement can be important when evaluating whether DOC commitment is the least harsh disposition consistent with safety and the child’s welfare.
Why It Matters
T.M. gives Indiana juvenile practitioners a concrete statutory response when a court assumes that a supportive adult is unavailable merely because the adult lacks preexisting custody or guardianship. Counsel should identify the separate powers to place a child in another home and award wardship to a person, then build a record addressing safety, best interests, background checks, education, treatment, supervision, and the proposed custodian’s capacity.
The opinion does not minimize T.M.’s conduct or direct a community placement. Its practical force is procedural and substantive: a DOC commitment must follow consideration of the options the General Assembly actually authorized. Where residential programs reject a youth with complex needs, courts and counsel must still evaluate a viable nonparent home under the statutory safeguards rather than treating formal guardianship as an unstated threshold requirement.