The Indiana Court of Appeals held that executing a full four-year suspended sentence was disproportionate where technical probation violations coincided with a documented psychiatric crisis.
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that the criminal restitution statute does not authorize reimbursement for a victim’s rental-car expenses.
The Wyoming Supreme Court held that time spent jailed on independent Iowa charges did not count toward a Wyoming sentence and declined to review a later counsel order that was not identified in a notice of appeal.
The Wyoming Supreme Court held that jail time already credited to a probation-revocation sentence did not have to be credited again in two separate felony cases.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court vacated convictions because the defendant took over core trial advocacy without a knowing and intelligent waiver of counsel under article 12.
The Massachusetts SJC held that 109- and 123-day delays in seeking cell phone search warrants were reasonable under article 14’s totality-of-the-circumstances test.
The Nevada Supreme Court reversed Allen’s convictions for sexual assault on a minor, holding en banc that a district court abused its discretion in finding A.S.’s juvenile records of a nearly identical prior sexual offense irrelevant to Allen’s alternative-suspect defense. The court found the error was not harmless where it foreclosed pretrial investigation, terminated the admissibility inquiry, the jury independently indicated interest in the alternative suspect, and the State exploited the exclusion to elicit misleading testimony.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court vacated Robert Albert’s rape-of-a-child convictions and remanded for a new trial, holding that his daughter’s private diary entry — written the day after the last alleged assault but never shared with anyone — could not qualify as “first complaint evidence” under Commonwealth v. King because the first complaint doctrine requires a communication to another person; the entry was more detailed than the actual oral disclosure, deprived the defendant of a witness to cross-examine, and was accompanied by a limiting instruction that misdescribed the diary as a “telling” of the assault.
The Indiana Supreme Court held that when the State proves the constitutionality of a search or seizure at a pretrial suppression hearing, it is not required to re-establish constitutional compliance at trial; courts assessing the stop’s validity may consider evidence from both the suppression hearing and the trial, and the exclusionary rule’s aims are fully served by requiring proof once.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court and held that “skill game” devices—electronic gaming terminals marketed as legal skill-based alternatives to slot machines—are “slot machines” under the Gaming Act and prohibited “gambling devices” under the Crimes Code, with a 120-day stay giving operators time to adjust before enforcement resumes.
The Third DCA dismissed a petition for belated appeal from a pro se litigant who had been barred from filing in the trial court under Spencer, explaining that without a lower court order to review, the appellate court lacks jurisdiction — making a trial court filing bar effectively the ‘end of the road.’
The First DCA affirmed the admission of crime scene photographs showing a Confederate flag tag on the defendant’s vehicle, finding no abuse of discretion where the photos were relevant to damage and paint transfer, the tag could not be redacted without losing evidence, and the State did not dwell on the images.
The Fourth DCA reversed three of the defendant’s drug convictions on double jeopardy grounds, holding that simple possession is subsumed by possession with intent to sell, and that identically-charged trafficking counts for the same date violate the prohibition against multiple punishments for the same offense.
The Sixth District rejected a duress defense in a major fentanyl trafficking prosecution, holding the defendant’s voluntary long-term participation in the drug enterprise precluded the defense as a matter of law.
The Sixth District rejected a stand-your-ground defense where the defendant initiated the confrontation by leaving his home to confront the victim, who suffered permanent vision damage.
The Sixth District ordered resentencing on a felonious assault conviction where the trial court failed to impose the required indefinite sentence under Ohio’s Reagan Tokes Act.
The Second District affirmed the revocation of NGRI conditional release for a defendant who exhibited a pattern of treatment noncompliance and refusal to accept responsibility for underlying offenses.
The Eighth District affirmed convictions for domestic violence and aggravated menacing against EMS workers, holding that the defendant’s verbal death threats to first responders constituted separately punishable offenses from the underlying domestic assault.
The Eighth District reversed the trial court’s dismissal of a rape and kidnapping indictment for preindictment delay, holding that the defendant failed to establish actual prejudice from the 16-year gap between the offense and indictment despite the deaths of two potential witnesses.
The Eighth District reversed a jail-time credit calculation where the trial court awarded credit for days the defendant had already received credit for in a separate, unrelated case, and remanded for factual findings supporting the recalculated credit.
The First District held that imposing consecutive sentences on two firearm specifications was erroneous where the underlying felonies arose from the same act or transaction, but found no plain error because the defendant received an agreed sentence and failed to object below.
The Fifth District reversed and remanded for resentencing, holding that aggravated vehicular assault (OVI-based) and vehicular assault (recklessness-based) are allied offenses of similar import that must merge under R.C. 2941.25 when committed against the same victim.
The Seventh District affirmed an attempted murder conviction and 14-year sentence, finding no plain error in the admission of a victim’s video-taped statement, commercial trucking company videos, and electronic log data.
The Fifth District affirmed the conviction and sentence of a 19-year-old DYS inmate for felonious assault committed within a juvenile correctional facility, rejecting the argument that the case should have originated in or been remanded to juvenile court.