Case Title: Sistrunk v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 49S05-1410-CR-654

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 2015-07-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT  
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Timothy J. O’Connor 
 
 
 
 
 
Gregory F. Zoeller 
O’Connor & Auersch 
 
 
 
 
 
Attorney General of Indiana 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ian McLean 
Ruth Ann Johnson 
 
 
 
 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
Marion County Public Defender Agency 
 
 
 
 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
Stephen R. Creason 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Andrew A. Kobe 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 49S05-1410-CR-654 
 
GARY SISTRUNK, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Defendant below), 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellee (Plaintiff below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, Criminal Division Room 5 
No. 49G05-1202-FB-010112 
The Honorable Grant W. Hawkins, Judge 
The Honorable Christina Klineman, Master Commissioner 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A05-1211-CR-567 
_________________________________ 
 
 
July 30, 2015 
 
 
Rucker, Justice. 
Jul 30 2015, 9:01 am
 
 
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Gary Sistrunk challenges his convictions for robbery and criminal confinement as class B 
felonies contending, among other things, they violate Indiana’s constitutional ban on double 
jeopardy.  We affirm the judgment of the trial court. 
 
Facts and Procedural History 
 
On February 5, 2012, Gary Sistrunk entered a gas station in Marion County and 
purchased a cigar.  As the attendant was returning Sistrunk’s change, Sistrunk produced a 
handgun, pointed it at the attendant and demanded money from the cash register.  The attendant 
complied.  Sistrunk then demanded money from the safe.  The attendant responded that she was 
unable to open the safe.  Instead she handed Sistrunk two safety-deposit bags containing cash.  
Sistrunk then “told [the attendant] to sit on the ground and [she] sat on the ground, he stood there 
for about a minute and then [] walked out the door,” and she “waited for about [two] minutes to 
call the police.”  Tr. at 26. 
 
A Crime Stoppers’ tip led police to focus on Sistrunk as a person of interest.  Thereafter 
the attendant positively identified Sistrunk from a photo array as the man who robbed the gas 
station.  On February 14, 2012, the State charged Sistrunk with robbery and criminal 
confinement, both as class B felonies.  Thereafter Sistrunk, represented by private counsel, filed 
a motion asserting his indigence and requesting public funds to pay the expenses of an expert 
witness on the subject of eyewitness identification.  After conducting a hearing the trial court 
agreed Sistrunk was indigent for purposes of the motion but denied the request for public funds.  
 
Sistrunk waived his right to trial by jury.  A bench trial was conducted on October 4, 
2012, at the conclusion of which the trial court found Sistrunk guilty as charged.  Thereafter the 
trial court sentenced Sistrunk to two concurrent six-year terms of imprisonment.  Sistrunk 
appealed contending the two convictions violated Indiana’s prohibition on double jeopardy 
because the force used to support the robbery conviction was coextensive with the force used to 
support the confinement conviction.  Sistrunk also contended the trial court abused its discretion 
in denying his request for public funds to retain the services of an expert witness.  The Court of 
Appeals unanimously affirmed the trial court’s decision on this latter point.  However in a 
 
 
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divided opinion the court determined Sistrunk’s convictions for robbery and criminal 
confinement did not violate Indiana’s constitutional ban on double jeopardy, but it sua sponte 
determined that the same evidence, namely, Sistrunk’s act of being armed with a deadly weapon, 
was improperly used to enhance both of his convictions from class C to class B felonies.  See 
Sistrunk v. State, 11 N.E.3d 925 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014), vacated.  We disagree with our Court of 
Appeals colleagues on this point, and we previously granted transfer to explore the issue.  In all 
other respects, we summarily affirm the opinion of the Court of Appeals.  See Ind. App. R. 
58(A)(2).   
 
Discussion 
 
Article 1, Section 14 of the Indiana Constitution provides:  “No person shall be put in 
jeopardy twice for the same offense.”  In Richardson v. State, 717 N.E.2d 32 (Ind. 1999), this 
Court reviewed the history of the Indiana Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause to determine 
and articulate a single comprehensive rule synthesizing and superseding previous formulations 
and exceptions.  In so doing we explained that two or more offenses are the “same offense” in 
violation of the Indiana Double Jeopardy Clause if, “with respect to either the statutory elements 
of the challenged crimes or the actual evidence used to convict, the essential elements of one 
challenged offense also establish the essential elements of another challenged offense.”  Id. at 49.  
However, in addition to the protections afforded by the Indiana Double Jeopardy Clause, this 
Court has “long adhered to a series of rules of statutory construction and common law that are 
often described as double jeopardy, but are not governed by the constitutional test set forth in 
Richardson.”  Pierce v. State, 761 N.E.2d 826, 830 (Ind. 2002).  Among these is the rule that 
precludes a “[c]onviction and punishment for an enhancement of a crime where the enhancement 
is imposed for the very same behavior or harm as another crime for which the defendant has 
been convicted and punished.”  Guyton v. State, 771 N.E.2d 1141, 1143 (Ind. 2002) (emphasis 
added) (quoting Richardson, 717 N.E.2d at 56 (Sullivan, J., concurring)).  
 
In the case before us, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that “[t]he repeated use of a 
weapon to commit multiple separate crimes is not ‘the very same behavior’ precluding its use to 
separately enhance the resulting convictions.”  Sistrunk, 11 N.E.3d at 931 (quoting Miller v. 
 
 
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State, 790 N.E.2d 437, 439 (Ind. 2003)).  However, relying on the concurring opinion in Miller 
the court concluded that unlike the defendant in that case, here Sistrunk did not repeatedly use 
his handgun or use it more than once in committing the offenses for which he was convicted.  
Thus, his use of the handgun was in fact the very same behavior precluding its use to enhance 
both of his convictions.  Sistrunk, 11 N.E.3d at 932. 
 
We first observe that it is not apparent the majority in Miller endorsed the view expressed 
by the concurrence.  Indeed the Miller Court expressly declared that “the use of a single deadly 
weapon during the commission of separate offenses may enhance the level of each offense.”  790 
N.E.2d at 439 (quotation omitted).  More importantly, this rule predates Richardson by several 
years and thus cannot be said to be included in the “very same behavior” category of examples 
precluding enhancements.  See, e.g., Bivins v. State, 642 N.E.2d 928, 945 (Ind. 1994) (rejecting 
assertion that defendant’s convictions for robbery and confinement cannot both be aggravated to 
class B felonies by the same “use of a deadly weapon” aggravator); Carrington v. State, 678 
N.E.2d 1143, 1147-48 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997) (no double jeopardy violation where defendant’s 
rape and robbery convictions were enhanced because defendant was armed with a knife during 
commission of both crimes), trans. denied; Peterson v. State, 650 N.E.2d 339, 340 (Ind. Ct. App. 
1995) (no double jeopardy violation where defendant’s robbery and rape convictions were 
enhanced based upon his possession of a single deadly weapon during the commission of the 
offenses); Brown v. State, 633 N.E.2d 322, 324 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994) (no double jeopardy 
violation where defendant’s robbery and confinement convictions were enhanced because he was 
armed with a knife during commission of the crimes), trans. denied.  And post-Richardson this 
Court decided Gates v. State, 759 N.E.2d 631 (Ind. 2001).  In that case the defendant threatened 
his victim with a knife during the commission of rape, criminal deviate conduct, and criminal 
confinement, all of which had been enhanced to class B felony offenses because the defendant 
had been armed with a knife while committing the offenses.  Affirming the defendant’s 
conviction we observed in a footnote: “It is well established in Indiana that the use of a single 
deadly weapon during the commission of separate offenses may enhance the level of each 
offense.”  Id. at 633 n.2.  
 
 
 
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In sum, our jurisprudence teaches that committing two or more separate offenses each 
while armed with a deadly weapon—even the same weapon—is not within the category of rules 
precluding the enhancement of each offense based on “the very same behavior.”  Stated 
somewhat differently, our recognition in Richardson of the common law rule establishing that 
enhancements cannot be imposed for the very same behavior could not have included use of a 
single deadly weapon during the commission of separate offenses.  And this is so because no 
such common law rule existed.  Instead the opposite was true.   
 
Conclusion 
 
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.  
 
Rush, C.J., and Dickson, David and Massa, JJ., concur.