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The Indiana Court Appeals will be on the road for the three traveling oral arguments this month with one stop scheduled for the Indiana Fever practice court.
The Appeals on Wheels traveling oral arguments program is intended to help Hoosiers learn more about the judiciary’s role in Indiana government and to provide opportunities for Court of Appeals judges to meet and talk with citizens in informal settings.
Appeals on Wheels sessions take place in similar fashion to those held in the Indiana Statehouse courtroom, with one big difference. The judges take questions from the audience after oral arguments, but not about the case they’ve just heard.
Judges Cale Bradford, Rudolph Pyle and Dana Kenworthy will be hearing arguments in a 2021 murder case at 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 30 on the court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
The case involves Alsham Laster, who was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend, Latisha Burnett.
Neighbors heard gunshots near the home and saw Laster going in and out of the home a few hours before he called 911 and reported Burnett’s death. Burnett’s death was determined to be a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds. Laster was taken in for questioning. While in questioning, Laster’s phone was seized. A warrant application for the phone was submitted and denied. Additional information was added to the warrant and 22 hours after the phone was seized, the warrant was submitted to a different judge and granted.
Prior to his jury trial, Laster filed a motion to suppress, arguing the phone was unlawfully seized. The Marion Superior Court found it was reasonable for police to seize the phone and denied the motion. Evidence obtained from the phone was admitted at trial over Laster’s objection.
Laster was found guilty and sentenced to 62 years.
On appeal, Laster argues his phone was unlawfully seized, and that the trial court erred in admitting evidence from it. The state argues the seizure was reasonable under exigent circumstances because it prevented any evidence on the phone from being destroyed and any error from admitting the phone’s evidence would be harmless.
Traveling just south of Indianapolis, the court will be at Whiteland Community High School at 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 21.
Judges Leanna Weissmann, Peter Foley and Paul Felix will be hearing arguments in Nathaniel Jordan’s case in which he was convicted of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, three lesser counts of neglect of a dependent, battery, and driving while suspended.
Jordan’s girlfriend was driving a van carrying Jordan, their toddler, and his girlfriend’s other three children, all ages three to six, when the van crashed and flipped on a highway, killing her oldest child.
Investigators said Jordan punched his girlfriend in the face while she was driving, causing her to lose control of the van. Two of the children lacked proper child restraints at the time of the crash.
Jordan was found guilty by a jury and was sentenced to 41 years.
On appeal, Jordan claims, among other things, that: the evidence is insufficient to prove he committed neglect of a dependent resulting in death; he proved he acted in self-defense and the Delaware Circuit Court improperly restricted the jury’s consideration of that defense and prosecutorial misconduct amounting to fundamental error occurred during the state’s closing argument to the jury.
Lastly, the appellate court will be at Rising Sun High School at 10 a.m. on Aug. 28.
Judges Weissmann, Foley and Melissa May will be hearing arguments in Neil Escue’s case in which he was found guilty of criminal recklessness.
Escue and Justus Green were involved in a five-year-on-and-off intimate relationship that ended a few years ago. In the span of 20 minutes, on May 15, 2023, Escue rammed the back of the Green’s vehicle while she was inside. The force in which Escue used was sufficient to crumple up part of the rear/trunk area of Green’s vehicle and chip the paint of the front brush guard on Escue’s pickup truck.
The police were called and when they arrived, Green was crying uncontrollably and informed them that Escue hit her vehicle.
The state charged Escue with Level 6 felony criminal recklessness, Class A misdemeanor domestic battery, and Class B Misdemeanor criminal mischief. A jury trial was held, and the jury was instructed as to the legal definitions of “bodily injury,” “serious bodily injury,” and “deadly weapon.”
Hancock Superior Court granted Escue’s motion for directed verdict for criminal mischief and the state dismissed the domestic battery charge.
Escue was sentenced to two years, 180 days executed in the Hancock County Jail followed by 545 days of community corrections as a direct commitment. Subsequently, the trial court entered a domestic violence determination.
Escue raises the following restated issues for the appellate court’s review: whether there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction for criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon, in this case, a vehicle, and whether the trial court abused its discretion when it entered its domestic violence determination.
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