Supreme Court Defines Marriage Relatives

Scott Roberts for www.theindianalawyer.com

The Indiana Supreme Court determined the sister of a man who was once married to the defendant’s aunt is not a family or household member and changed a man’s Level 6 felony charge to Class A misdemeanor battery.

Leonard L. Suggs and his girlfriend Evelyn Garrett got into an argument at a bowling alley in 2014 that turned violent. Suggs threw a beer can at Garrett that missed, then threw a bowling ball at Garrett which grazed her and hit Vera Warren on the left side of her head. Warren’s brother  had previously been married to Suggs’ aunt.

Suggs was charged with Level 6 felony domestic battery for his assault on Garrett and battery as a Level 6 felony for his assault on Warren. He was sentenced to two years for each conviction to be served consecutively. Suggs challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, in which the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Indiana Code 35-42-2-1 provides in relevant part that battery is a Level 6 felony if the offense is committed against a family or household member. Suggs said Warren was not a family member, but he does not deny the rest of the criteria in the code for felony battery.

Indiana Code 35-31.5-2-128 dictates an individual is a family or household member of another person in relevant part because the person is related by blood or adoption to the other person, or is or was related by marriage to the other person. Suggs says Warren is neither of those to him.

Justice Robert Rucker wrote the decision in the case and said, “We are not persuaded that by use of the term ‘related by marriage’ the legislature intended to include an infinite variety of relationships whose only connection is a marriage or series of marriages identified somewhere on the remote branches of a family tree.”

Rucker wrote that related by marriage is commonly referred to as affinity, the connection existing in marriage between each of the married persons and the kindred of the other. A relationship by affinity is not unlimited, he wrote, and the Legislature intended this meaning when it wrote the code.

“Suggs is the blood relative of one spouse – his mother’s sister – and Warren is the blood relative of the other spouse – her own brother,” Rucker wrote. “There is no affinity between the blood relatives of one spouse and the blood relatives of another,” he said quoting 2 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton’s Criminal Law Section 242 at 573.

The case is Leonard L. Suggs v. State of Indiana, 02S03-1508-CR-510, is remanded to reduce the conviction to a Class A misdemeanor.

Appellate Court Defines Rules Of Police Stops

by Scott Roberts for www.theindianalawyer.com

The Indiana Court of Appeals found a man’s tendered jury instruction was a mistake of law and not a mistake of fact and upheld his conviction of felony resisting law enforcement by fleeing. The judges then outlined what fleeing law enforcement means and what rights police officers and drivers have to determine location of stops.

An Indianapolis police officer pulled over Christopher Cowans after he thought Cowans was being evasive by pulling through a gas station and coming out the other side to get away from the officer, who was following him. As the officer was doing some paperwork, Cowans pulled away and led police on a low speed “chase” for six minutes.

Cowans claimed he drove away to get into a better lighted spot, because he had seen several stories on the news of officers having violent encounters with unarmed black males. He said he saw on the news citizens are allowed to drive to a well-lit area before stopping if they fear for their safety. However, the officer who was following him said he drove by several well-lit places before he stopped.

Cowans tendered a jury instruction before his trial as to a mistake of fact, characterizing his belief that people being stopped by police if they feared for their safety could drive until they found a public lighted place to surrender. However, the trial court dismissed his instruction and he was found Cowans guilty of the Level 6 felony. He appealed.

The trial court said it was not reasonable for Cowans to believe he could drive to a well-lit spot to surrender, which is why it dismissed Cowans’ claim. However, the COA said it wanted to focus on another element of the jury instruction case, that his claim was a mistake of law, not fact.

The COA said the mistake of fact defense would be appropriate if Cowans said he thought the flashing lights behind him were a tow truck, or if he thought the lights were directed at another vehicle or if he did not see them at all.

“Assuming that Cowans made a mistake, it would be a mistake of law – he thought that there was a legal principle that gave him the right to drive to a location that he considered safer. A mistaken fact regarding what the law says is still a mistake of law. Thus, Cowan’s argument is unavailing,” Judge John Baker wrote for the panel.

The COA also took time in this case to define fleeing and what a driver should do when being pulled over. “A person who drives to a location of greater safety for her or the officer, intending only to be in a location of greater safety for her or the officer, is not ‘fleeing’ from the police,” Baker wrote. He later wrote, “We believe that a defendant charged with resisting law enforcement by fleeing by vehicle would be entitled, if he so requested, to have a jury instruction regarding the definition of the word ‘flee.’”

Baker wrote juries are the only ones who can decide whether a driver was making it harder on police officers when signaled to pull over. The determination requires “myriad facts.”

“So we reiterate that a driver does not have full discretion to choose to stop anywhere. But it would be equally absurd to hold that drivers have zero discretion to choose the location of a stop; whether the driver exercises that very limited discretion reasonably should be a question of fact for the jury,” Baker concluded.

The case is Christopher Cowans v. State of Indiana, 49A05-1508-CR-1196.