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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Ind. Courts - More on: "Could 2009 bring a third Camm trial?"

This January 5th ILB entry quoted from a New Albany/Jeffersonville News & Tribune story that began:

David Camm is still waiting for the Indiana Supreme Court to decide his fate, again. Quietly, Floyd County leaders worry about what could happen.
Today Harold D. Adams of the Louisville Courier Journal has a lengthy story headlined "Camm, families await ruling on murder appeal." It begins:
Indiana juries have twice convicted David Camm of murdering his wife and their two children in the garage of the family's Georgetown home in 2000.

But some observers believe the former state police trooper has a good chance of getting a third trial -- or even a direct acquittal -- when the Indiana Supreme Court rules on his latest appeal, which was argued a year ago next month.

The court is not under any deadline, and its decision could come at any time.

"Generally, if they're going to affirm something and it's an easy open-and-shut case, it's done quickly," Stacy Uliana, one of Camm's attorneys, said of the state's high court. "The longer it takes, I think the better it is for us. There is a real chance here that they could acquit him."

Craig Bradley, an Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor not directly involved in the case, agreed, noting: "My whole reaction to this case all along was that the evidence seemed very thin at the trial. So I'm not too surprised that the appeal is presenting apparently some difficulties to the Supreme Court."

But Deputy Attorney General Stephen Creason, who defended the state's case in the appeal presented on May 22, said the lengthy wait "doesn't mean anything."

"I was thinking initially that it would take at least a year," and it wouldn't be unusual "for that to take another six months," he said.

"The most obvious reason" that the court has not yet ruled, Creason said, "is that this (case) record is very large and there are many, many issues that the defense raised, and it takes a lot of time to go through the record and the briefs on each point."

Creason and Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson, who ran the second Camm prosecution, insist that the Supreme Court will find that the trial leading to Camm's March 2006 conviction for the shootings of Kimberly Camm, 35, Bradley Camm, 7, and Jill Camm, 5, was handled appropriately.

Here are stories on the oral argument, from May 22nd and 23rd, 2008.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 21, 2009 09:20 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts