Background
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed maximum, consecutive sentences totaling 22 years for Andrew Crossley’s rape and child-exploitation convictions. The court concluded that the calculated nature of the offenses, their devastating effect on the 16-year-old victim, and Crossley’s closely related criminal history outweighed his arguments based on mental illness, childhood trauma, homelessness, and employment. More broadly, the court rejected Crossley’s reliance on older Indiana decisions suggesting that maximum sentences are reserved for the “worst of the worst.”
Crossley entered a South Bend community center under false pretenses and remained there for roughly two hours. He approached two teenage girls, used a false name, and offered them money and a car in exchange for sexual acts. After they refused, he followed one girl into a dressing room, forced his way inside, photographed her exposed body, and raped her while making movements that caused her to believe he had a gun. Investigators later recovered the photograph from his phone’s trash folder.
A jury found Crossley guilty of two rape counts and child exploitation. The trial court entered judgment on one rape count and the exploitation count to avoid double-jeopardy concerns. At sentencing, the record showed prior convictions for sexual battery and sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old, two later convictions for failing to register as a sex or violent offender, and assessments placing Crossley at a high risk of reoffending. The court imposed 16 years for Level 3 felony rape and six years for Level 5 felony child exploitation, ordered consecutively.
The Court’s Holding
Applying Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B), the court held that the aggregate sentence was not inappropriate in light of both the nature of the offenses and Crossley’s character. Rule 7(B) permits appellate revision after due consideration of the trial court’s decision, but its purpose is to “leaven the outliers,” not to substitute the appellate panel’s preferred sentence. The two inquiries are balanced: when the nature of an offense weighs strongly against relief, the defendant must make a correspondingly stronger showing on character.
The offense was planned rather than impulsive, the court reasoned. Crossley gained access by deception, waited for a vulnerable victim, persisted after refusal, isolated her, and concealed evidence afterward. The victim’s resulting trauma included multiple suicide attempts and hospitalizations. On character, Crossley’s prior sexual offenses involved another teenage victim, and his registration violations and risk assessments reinforced the trial court’s conclusion that a maximum sentence was warranted. His accounts of mental illness and childhood trauma were also inconsistent with an earlier presentence report.
The panel separately addressed the argument that any mitigating factor prevents a maximum sentence because maximum terms are reserved for the worst offenses and offenders. The cited cases arose under Indiana’s former presumptive-sentencing framework, which required courts to identify and balance aggravators and mitigators before departing from a fixed term. After constitutional decisions invalidated that system, the General Assembly adopted advisory sentences and removed mandatory weighting. Under the current regime, a trial court may impose any term within the statutory range, and appellate courts do not review the relative weight assigned to sentencing factors. The older formulation therefore does not operate as a ceiling on lawful maximum sentences.
Key Takeaways
- Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) review focuses on the aggregate sentence and balances the nature of the offense against the offender’s character; it is not a fresh weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
- Older Indiana cases describing maximum sentences as limited to the “worst of the worst” arose under a superseded presumptive-sentencing system and do not constrain trial courts under today’s advisory framework.
- Planning, victim selection, concealment, closely related prior convictions, and documented harm can support maximum consecutive terms despite asserted personal mitigation.
Why It Matters
For Indiana criminal practitioners, Crossley draws a clean line between abuse-of-discretion review and Rule 7(B) review. A defendant cannot convert an appropriateness challenge into a request that the appellate court reweigh mitigators. Briefs seeking sentence revision should instead explain why the offense and character, considered holistically and against the aggregate sentence, place the case outside the appropriate range.
The opinion also cautions against relying on memorable sentencing language without checking the statutory regime that produced it. The shift from fixed presumptive terms to advisory sentences changed the legal function of aggravating and mitigating evidence. Prosecutors and defense counsel should ground maximum-sentence arguments in current Rule 7(B) doctrine rather than treating the “worst of the worst” phrase as a controlling rule.