Olivia Covington for www.theindianalawyer.com

The Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed a Jay Circuit Court decision to deny a woman’s petition for expungement of her records after she was convicted of forgery and dealing in methamphetamine.

In Mindy M. Cline v. State of Indiana, 38A04-1512-XP-2221, Cline filed a petition for expungement of her 2003 forgery conviction and 2004 dealing in methamphetamine conviction on Oct. 16, 2015, and the state did not oppose.

However, on Nov. 13, 2015, Cline’s petition was denied, with the trial court saying it was “based largely on the nature of the convictions, the severity of the offenses and the relatively short duration since release from probation/parole on the most recent convictions.” At that time, Cline had been out of supervision for five years.

At a hearing one day before Cline’s petition was denied,  Jay Circuit Judge Brian Hutchinson had told Cline that he remembered her convictions, particularly her methamphetamine conviction, and that he was tired of dealing with meth and heroin offenders.

“I’ve had a belly full,” Hutchinson said of drug offenders. “I’m not doing favors for people that are causing these problems in Jay County.”

Cline appealed, saying the trial court abused its discretion by relying upon circumstances that are not statutory bars to expungement – specifically, the type of offense and length of time elapse.

The state wrote that Cline was asking for the Court of Appeals to reweigh the evidence and invade the province of the fact-finder, but in its reversal on Thursday, the court wrote that the state’s argument ignores the fact that the existing evidence given to the trial court pointed toward expungement.

Further, the court wrote that it seemed the trial court thought Cline had eight convictions, rather than two. Although her original expungement petition stated that she had four forgery convictions and four dealing in methamphetamine convictions, the evidence at the expungement hearing showed that she only had one conviction each.

Cline was young when she was convicted and has now satisfied the prerequisites for expungement, the court wrote. Further, the Court of Appeals said she has been consistently employed and has earned various degrees, licenses and certifications, including an associate’s degree in business administration.

However, Cline testified that she lost her job as a store manager when the store owners learned of her record. She testified that she would like to return to management and would be more able to do so if her record were expunged.

The Court of Appeals called Hutchinson’s remarks about Cline’s past convictions and drug offenders as a whole “troubling.”

“Undeniably, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are a burden upon communities and judicial resources,” the court wrote. “That said, our legislature has provided a second chance for individuals who have in the distant past committed drug-related crimes.”

The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the denial of Cline’s petition for expungement, with Judge Michael Barnes dissenting.

Barnes wrote in a separate opinion that although Hutchinson’s comments were “not exactly artful and (were) unnecessarily harsh,” the trial court was within its parameters to deny the expungement petition. Further, Barnes wrote that state statute is silent on what factors trial courts may consider when deciding how to exercise its discretion.

However, Barnes wrote that he would remand the case to trial court to clarify how many convictions it believed Cline had and reconsider its denial.

Appeal Process Bumps Up February Bar Exam Passage Rate

Jennifer Nelson for www.theindianalawyer.com

The February 2016 Indiana Bar Exam results have been amended to reflect those who successfully appealed their initial failure, resulting in a 4-percentage-point increase in the overall pass rate.

Statistics available on the Indiana Board of Law Examiners’ website show that 55 percent of the 258 people who sat for the February test were successful. When the list was originally released in April, the overall pass rate for all takers was 51 percent.

Last year, the overall pass rate for test takers saw slight increases after the appeals process was complete. The July 2015 bar exam overall pass rate when from 72 percent to 74 percent; the February 2015 bar exam overall pass rate increased from 64 percent to 67 percent.

Bradley Skolnik, executive director of the Indiana Board of Law Examiners, said that almost every applicant who is within the range eligible for appeal – a combined scale score of 255-263 – files an appeal. It is a simple form to complete and applicants have two weeks after the issuance of their results to appeal, based on Indiana Admission and Discipline Rule 14.

Under the rule, certain BLE members are appointed as “appeals reviewers,” who consider and decide all appeals of bar exam results. Skolnik said the BLE takes a great deal of time to review the appeals and it can take approximately a month or more to render a decision.

Skolnik declined to release the number of people who have appealed the July 2016 bar exam or previous bar exams and the number of successful applicants, citing Admission and Discipline Rule 19 on confidentiality.

Indiana Tech Law School, which had 12 students sit for the July bar exam but just one pass, said of those 12 students, some were within the appeal range. A spokesman for the school did not confirm how many of those students, if any, would be appealing.

The bar passage rate in Indiana has been on the decline in recent years. July bar passage rates traditionally were in the high 70s or even low 80s, but dipped to 72 percent in July 2014 and 74 percent last year. The results of the February bar exam, which traditionally sees a lower pass rate due to higher repeat test takers, have fluctuated. In 2007, 70 percent of overall test takers passed. In 2014, only 61 percent passed. The last time the overall pass rate for the February test was in the 50 percent range was 2002, where 57 percent of all test takers passed.

Archived statistics of bar passage rates going back to 2002 are available on the state judiciary’s website.

“The decline in the passage rate in Indiana is part of a national trend,” Skolnik said. “Unfortunately, we’re not immune to what’s happening around the country.”