« Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 5 today (and 10 NFP) | Main | Law - More on "Victory for wine lovers sours as Michigan tries again to ban direct shipping" »

Friday, December 05, 2008

Ind. Decisions - "Appeals court again rejects sentence for 1992 murder"

The Court of Appeals decision December 4th in the case of Jerome Reed v. State of Indiana (NFP) is the subject of a story today by Niki Kelly in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Some quotes:

The Indiana Court of Appeals on Thursday again overruled Allen Superior Court Judge John Surbeck’s decision to sentence a man to 50 years in prison for a 1992 murder.

Instead, the appellate judges cut 10 years off of Jerome Reed’s prison term, meaning he could be released from prison by 2011. * * *

The Indiana Court of Appeals originally ruled in 2007 that Surbeck used an inappropriate factor to add to Reed’s sentence and ordered him to consider other items that might reduce the prison term in a new sentencing hearing.

As a result, Surbeck in January re-sentenced Reed, finding that the nature and circumstances of the crime justified adding 10 years to the standard 40-year term for murder in 1992.

He noted during that hearing that Reed had an opportunity to walk away after Ludy was already injured on the floor but instead shot her twice more.

Thursday’s Indiana Court of Appeals ruling found that Surbeck again used an inappropriate aggravating factor to increase the sentence.

Specifically, the judges found that Surbeck depended on the probable-cause affidavit for Reed’s case, which described a slightly different version of events than those Reed admitted to at the guilty-plea hearing.

At the guilty plea, Reed described the first shot as accidental rather than intentional.

“Our supreme court has cautioned that a trial court should find the nature and circumstances of an offense aggravating only if the offense involves ‘particularly heinous facts or situations,’ ” the decision said.

“Although we do not condone the severity of Reed’s offense and recognize that all murders are inherently heinous, the facts elicited from Reed’s guilty plea hearing are too limited to permit a finding that the nature and circumstances of the offense were more egregious than the nature and circumstances of a typical murder.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 5, 2008 01:05 PM
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions