July 29, 2004

Indiana Decisions - Two stories today

"Court rejects banning people from parks" is the headline to this AP story that begins:

State law does not authorize police to put people on a trespass list or ban them from a public park, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled yesterday. The court said a Kokomo officer overstepped his authority when he saw Stephen L. Travis sitting on a city park bench in September 2002 and arrested him for allegedly trespassing.

Another officer, Greg Baldini, had encountered Travis and others gambling in the park two days earlier and had told him not to come back or he would be arrested for trespassing. During the trial, Baldini could not say precisely what authority he had to place a citizen on a trespass list for a public park. "I just know we can do it," he said.

The decision, Stephen L. Travis v. State of Indiana (7/28/04 IndCtApp), was summarized in this entry yesterday.

"Appeals court upholds sentence of man who killed a state legislator" is the headline to another AP story about a decision issued Wednesday. Some quotes:

The Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld a 23-year prison sentence imposed on a drunken driver who caused a crash that killed a state legislator.

The ruling, issued yesterday, said that Alan Wickliff, of Shelbyville, had an extensive criminal history and that the judge who sentenced him properly weighed aggravating and mitigating circumstances. * * *

Wickliff pleaded guilty in Johnson County Superior Court without any sentencing agreement with prosecutors.

Judge Cynthia Emkes sentenced him to 20 years for causing a death while driving drunk — a crime aggravated by Wickliff's 1999 misdemeanor drunken-driving conviction. He also was sentenced to three years on each of two marijuana-possession charges. * * * Wickliff appealed, saying the sentence was inappropriate, but the appeals court disagreed.

I have obtained a copy of this unpublished opinion, Wickliff v. State (7/28/04 IndiCtApp) and will post it here shortly.

[Update] Here is the Court of Appeals opinion in Wickliff.

Posted by Marcia Oddi at July 29, 2004 11:57 AM