The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects individuals from random police searches. The United States Supreme Court has found that, implicit within the Fourth Amendment is a preference for a valid warrant before conducting a search. Specifically, the Supreme Court has stated that “searches conducted outside the judicial process . . . are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment – subject only to a few . . . exceptions.”1 Therefore, if a ... Read More
09
Aug2019
08
Aug2019
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects you from illegal searches and seizures. This means that when police officers illegally conduct searches and illegally seize items, evidence obtained as a result of the illegal search and/or seizure cannot be used against the individual to convict them. The starting point in determining whether the search or seizure was illegal depends on the circumstances. To claim that there was an illegal ... Read More
25
Jul2019
The Indiana Court of Appeals made it abundantly clear that if you want to interfere with a criminal proceeding by refusing to testify and do so with a grant of immunity, you will go to jail. A key new case on this rule is the topic of this blog post.
In Michael Leroy Tunis v. State of Indiana, 2019 Ind. App. LEXIS 322, Tunis was called upon to testify against Samuel Jude Clark in Clark’s trial for alleged ... Read More
16
Jul2019
Most of us have heard the term Miranda warning at some point in our lives, but what are Miranda warnings? When do they matter? In a nutshell, Miranda warnings come into play when an individual is taken into police custody. Police are to give an individual his or her Miranda warnings before interrogating the individual. Miranda warnings, such as the right to remain silent, are designed to put an individual on notice of his or ... Read More
08
Jul2019
The vast majority of us have been pulled over at some point in our lives. Whether it be for speeding or a random traffic stop, being pulled over is often an unpleasant situation. For some of us, being pulled over led to further complications, such as police conducting a search of your vehicle. But can police just pull you over whenever they feel like it? Can they search your vehicle? The short answer is, it ... Read More
03
Jul2019
Double Jeopardy is a term that most have heard of before, whether it be from personal experience, a book, or television show. But what is this concept of “double jeopardy” and how is it applied? In a nutshell, double jeopardy protects a person from being convicted of the same crime twice. Both the U.S. Constitution and the Indiana Constitution have clauses protecting against double jeopardy. While the definition of double jeopardy seems straight forward, its ... Read More
28
Jun2019
As we all know, individuals do not have the right to take another’s life. The law is clear and unambiguous as to that point. It is safe to say that the law values human life over all other individual rights ten-fold. This is why individuals are never allowed to kill people who come onto their land to steal or cause damage to the property. The law will always value life over things, and therefore ... Read More
25
Jun2019
You’ve probably heard the old phrase, “I’ll appeal it!” But what does that mean? Your first mental image may be an argument before justices of the United States Supreme Court in a landmark case like Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade. For Indiana litigants, there is the remote possibility that a case that originates in an Indiana trial court may wind up in SCOTUS. However, the chances are slim. If you do not believe your Indiana judge or jury has ... Read More
20
Jun2019
The Indiana Civil Protection Order Act1 was enacted to protect victims of domestic or family violence and promote the prevention of future domestic and family violence2. The Act allows victims to file for an order of protection against members of their own household who have committed domestic or family violence. The Act also allows victims to file for an order of protection against individuals who have committed stalking or a sex offense against the victim. ... Read More
17
Jun2019
The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the “fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”1 This fundamental right to parent is why the Indiana Courts place the burden of proof on the Department of Child Services (“DCS”) when it comes to proving that a child is a child in need of services (“CHINS”). Specifically, our Indiana Supreme Court has found that DCS must prove three ... Read More