At the law office of Jacob Rigney, we pride ourselves on making complicated legal issues simple. In keeping with that, we once again present our recurring feature, “one sentence case law review” where we read an entire appellate decision and boil it down to one sentence for you. Today’s accompanying musical selection is right here, where you wish you were.
Lewis v. State (12 very not suitable for children pages)
Indiana’s death penalty and life without parole statutes do not require a trial court to enter an enhanced sentence upon a trial courts’ finding that the aggravators outweigh the mitigators, but rather allow the Court to consider death, life without parole, or a term of years as a sentence; and admission of evidence that the Defendant was a “mean drunk” was harmless error.
Evansville v. Magenheimer (14 pages)
A citizen who sues a city for unlawful enforcement of a firearms ordinance does not have to file a notice of tort action if the cause of action is not a tort.
Whistle Stop v. Indianapolis (24 pages)
The portion of Indianapolis’ no-smoking ordinance that allowed smoking at licensed off-track betting sites is unconstitutional.
A fun little aside: The Whistle-Stop case is an appeals court decision, which means it may eventually end up in front of the Indiana Supreme Court. But the Whistle Stop is not an off-track betting facility. They were attempting to claim that because the city unconstitutionally exempted off-track betting cites, the Court should strike down the ENTIRE non-smoking ordinance, presumably so people could legally smoke inside the Whistle Stop again. The result, up to this point, is that you still can’t smoke in the Whistle-Stop, and now you can’t smoke in an off-track betting site either. I’m sure the owners of the only licensed off-track betting site in Indianapolis (who also own the nearby casinos in Shelbyville and Anderson) are thrilled with the result of the Whistle-Stop’s litigation.
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