Willard Library Annual Appeal
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Justices Considering Definition Of ‘Place Of Detention’
There is a central question underlying a drug conviction case now under consideration by the Indiana Supreme Court: what is a “place of detention†under Indiana Evidence Rule 617? Once they answer that question, the justices will be able to decide whether a Grant County man’s heroin convictions must be thrown out.
The high court heard different interpretations of that definition Tuesday during oral arguments in the case of Aaron Fansler v. State of Indiana, 27S02-1710-CR-00672. The case began when Grant County law enforcement lured Aaron Fansler to a local hotel under the guise of wanting to purchase heroin from him, then arrested him in a hotel room after he arrived.
While in the hotel room, Fansler told the officers where they could find the heroin he had brought with him. When they later discovered additional drugs he had not disclosed, Fansler said he had kept those drugs a secret because he did not want to get caught with them.
Those two statements formed the basis of Fansler’s appeal, in which he argued they should have been thrown out because they were not electronically recorded pursuant to Rule 617. The Grant Circuit Court allowed the statements, leading to Fansler’s convictions on various misdemeanor and felony drug charges and his 13-year sentence, with 10 years executed.
The Indiana Court of Appeals, however, agreed with Fansler that the statements should not have been admitted because the hotel room was considered a “place of detention†and his statements were not made as part of routine booking, yet there was no electronic recording. However, considering the other evidence against Fansler, the appellate court upheld his convictions and found the admissions to be harmless error.
Fansler’s attorney, Evan Hammond, revisited the issue of what a “place of detention†is during oral arguments under Rule 617, which defines that term as “a jail, law enforcement agency station house, or any other stationary or mobile building owned or operated by a law enforcement agency… .â€
In this case, the fact that Grant County law enforcement had previously used the hotel as its central hub for sting operations and were lying in wait for Fansler in the hotel room qualified the room to fall under the Rule 617 definition, Hammond said. Thus, the statements were erroneously admitted, he said.
But Angela Sanchez, counsel for the state, said a location could only be considered a place of detention if it was the “functional equivalent†or a jailhouse. That would mean any location where law enforcement officials routinely bring people for questioning as part of a criminal investigation, Sanchez said.
Such places are typically equipped in advance with the necessary recording equipment, Sanchez said. Because the hotel room did not meet those qualification, the room was not a place of detention, so Fansler’s incriminating statements were properly admitted, she said.
The justices continually wrestled with what standards must be met for a location to qualify as a place of detention, asking counsel for both parties to answer that question in regard to hypothetical locations and urging them to put forth their own ideas of the standards.
For his part, Hammond advocated for a broad interpretation of the definition, telling the justices that under the facts of Fansler’s situation – including the fact that law enforcement had been planning the sting – the room qualified. He also noted that due to their preparation, law enforcement had time to set up recording equipment in the room.
Sanchez, however, repeatedly returned to her point that only places routinely used for interrogation could qualify. She also noted that if the justices wanted to expand Rule 617 in the way Hammond advocated, then it should be done through the rule-making process.
The state’s counsel also said the officers’ questions for Fansler in the hotel room where simply about the whereabouts of the drugs, rather than being part of a formal investigation. But Hammond posited the opposite theory, telling the court that the nature of the officers’ questions was investigatory, not inform
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Investigation of Homicide
The Vanderburgh County Coroner’s Office and the Evansville Police Department are currently investigating a homicide which occurred at a residence on Read Street . The victim has been identified as Byron Lee Edwards Jr., age 27, of Evansville.
Memorial Football Wins 3A State Title
 Memorial Football Wins 3A State Title
NOVEMBER 24TH, 2017Â 
NICK RUFFOLOÂ 44BLITZ, EVANSVILLE, INDIANA, SPORTS
Memorial football defeated Brebeuf Jesuit 29-17 at Lucas Oil Stadium to complete a 14-1 season.
Catch more coverage of the IHSAA state finals Saturday as Southridge battles Woodlan for the 2A state title.
44Sports will have highlights from the game on CBS 44 at 10:00 p.m. CT.
**Video Note** To clarify, Brebeuf Jesuit is the home of the Braves.
Commentary: Where The Heart Is
By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.comÂ
INDIANAPOLIS – This holiday will be a quiet one.
When our children were small, my wife and I would bundle them up for Thanksgiving. We often traveled east, starting out at either my sister’s place in upstate New York, where my birth family would gather, or in northwest Connecticut, where my wife’s parents played host.
Our kids ran around with their cousins, the children chasing each other around either house until they fell over, exhausted. We’d trundle them into beds, and then the adults would catch up over glasses of wine, often before a nice fire.
Time moves on, though.
The kids – our children and their cousins – have grown and scattered to spots all over the United States, Canada and Europe. Just in terms of logistics, pulling them together has become more complicated.
But there’s another factor involved.
As the years have passed and the children have grown, they have come to see Thanksgiving as a time and a place to reacquaint themselves with … home.
Our daughter, our first-born, went away to college in North Carolina this year. She hasn’t been back to the house where she grew up since my wife and I helped to move her into her dormitory.
We FaceTime with her every week.
She makes clear in those chats that she loves the college where she’s studying, that she’s meeting fascinating new friends, that she enjoys expanding her horizons.
But she misses things.
She wants to see her Indiana friends, go to a favorite restaurant, reconnect with her room.
She tells her brother, her mother and me she misses us, but she grows teary when she talks about our family dog, Dewey. Her voice softens to a whisper when she describes how she wants to sit in front of the fire with Dewey on her lap while she reads.
Because then she’ll know she’s home.
Our son is not yet college age, but he’s begun thinking about where he wants to go. His older sister’s departure has taught him that one part of his life will end soon, and another will begin. He’s begun the journey of stepping away from boyhood and into manhood.
So, the rituals of home speak to him, too.
He loves to have the dog sleep on him while he stretches out for a nap in the family room. He likes to hang out in the basement, surrounded by paraphernalia of the Cleveland Indians, his favorite baseball team. Often, over dinner, he asks my wife and me to tell stories about him and his sister when they were little.
Come Thanksgiving morning, our son and our daughter will sleep in.
When they wake, we may take the dog for a walk through the neighborhood. I’ll build a fire in the fireplace. My daughter will read in front of it, enticing Dewey to climb onto her lap for a good snooze. She’ll coo at and pet him between chapters.
We will eat well, and a lot.
My son will stretch out on the sofa to watch football – and beg Dewey to join him. He’ll stroke Dewey’s fur as they glance at the screen, and even as both drift off.
This is as it should be.
When my wife and I were new parents, we still thought of home as some place we had left and the holidays as a time to return to that home.
But, as life moved along, home became less something we inherited and more something we built, a place to raise our children, a nest from which they can fly when it is time for them to find and build their own homes with their own families.
Ours is not an uncommon story.
Millions of Hoosiers and Americans can tell similar stories of taking root, letting go, taking root again, letting go again. In all the tumult of this world and age, it is comforting to think of the things that don’t change.
A fire on a cold day still warms and soothes. A dog’s love is more relaxing than a cup of hot chocolate.
Children grow up, but the memories of them in their younger days linger in their parents’ hearts like friendly ghosts.
And home, wherever it is, is a reason to be grateful, simply because it is … home.
FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits†WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
Gail Riecken Comments About Ivy Tech Not Being Included In New IU Medical School Project
CCO State House Editor Gail Riecken Writes About “Rest Of The Story”
Senator Kenley, one of the most influential members on the Appropriations Committee officially retired from the State Senate on September 30,2017
Recently Victoria Spartz, Noblesville, was formally sworn in as the new State Senator to replace him. From what I have read about Senator Spartz she will be a dedicated member of the Indiana State Senate.
Allow me to take advantage of this opportunity to talk about one legislative decision that State Senator Kenley made during his final years in office.
i will use this as an example of what can trigger a position with a legislator that is often not public and maybe not specific to the issue. We could call it “the rest of the storyâ€.
I am speaking of Senator Kenley’s decision that he made a few years ago that punished Ivy Tech statewide, for not resolving some internal leadership problems that he had with the school. As an influential member of the State Senate Appropriations Committee he decided to oppose any new funding for capital improvements for Ivy Tech during a two year budget cycle, until the issues of low graduation and poor job placement rates were resolved to his satisfaction.
This decision not only hurt Ivy Tech statewide, but particularly hurt us in Evansville. Â Ivy Tech-Evansville lost it’s funding to be an important part of the new IU Medical School-Evansville project, as originally proposed by the State legislator. Â In fact, because Ivy Tech-Evansville was being touted as a crucial component to the approval of the newly proposed IU Medical School-Evansville it helped to justify the spending of $55 million dollars of local tax dollars to bring this project to Evansville.
it shall always be interesting to me just how frustrated the Senator must have felt to let the failings of Ivy Tech statewide potentially hurt the future of so many Ivy Tech-Evansville  medical students. I will admit, though, I did see his frustration, when visiting with him to confirm his intentions.
Maybe you have heard the saying that bill making is like sausage making. It is messy and often unappetizing to watch. But, understand, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know what’s in the sausage.
There were often reasons behind decisions that were made in the legislature, when I was there, that weren’t privy to all of us. As a legislator it served you well to find out what they were. And, the Ivy Tech matter, it is just one I was thinking of when reading about the State Senator Spartz appointment.
Gail Riecken
CCO State House Editor
Editor Footnote: Â Today’s “Readers Poll” question is: Do you feel that IVY TECH medical students should be allowed to be a part of the new IU Medical school-Evansville?
EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE:  Any comments posted in this column do not represent the views or opinions of the City County Observer or our advertisers