Case Title: Franks v. State

Citation: 302 N.E.2d 767

Docket Number: 373S33

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 1973-11-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
302 N.E.2d 767 (1973)
Paul Eugene FRANKS, Jr., Appellant (Defendant below),
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).
No. 373S33.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
November 2, 1973.
Barrie C. Tremper, Public Defender, Fort Wayne, for appellant.
Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., A. Frank Gleaves, III, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
HUNTER, Justice.
This is an appeal from a first degree murder conviction in which appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Indiana State Prison. Appellant raises one issue for our determination: Whether it is reversible error for a trial court to summarily deny an unverified application for change of venue from the county. We hold that it is not.
Criminal Rule 12, Rules of Criminal Procedure, reads in pertinent part as follows:
Prior to trial, on July 19, 1972, the appellant filed an unverified application for change of venue from the county in which he alleged that a confidential psychiatric report concerning the appellant had been published in a local newspaper. Appellant further alleged that the publication of said report would inevitably prejudice potential jurors within the county and, therefore, preclude a fair and impartial trial.
The unverified allegations presented nothing for the trial court to consider. Appellant contends that this Court has previously sanctioned the validity of an unverified application in Pierce v. State (1970), 253 Ind. 650, 256 N.E.2d 557. The reliance upon Pierce is misplaced. In that case the trial judge granted a change of venue upon an unverified application, but the Court did not address itself to the issue as to whether such procedure was proper. Instead, we held that the defendant could not later challenge the granting of the change of venue on the grounds that the application was unverified. In the instant case the application was properly denied in the first instance. There is no error here. Nelson v. State (1972), Ind., 287 N.E.2d 336.
For all the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is hereby affirmed.
ARTERBURN, C.J., and DeBRULER, GIVAN and PRENTICE, JJ., concur.