Title: Anthony Stockelman v. State of Indiana

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT 
 
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Dustin Houchin 
Steve Carter 
Salem, Indiana 
Attorney General of Indiana 
 
 
J.T. Whitehead 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 36S00-0608-CR-285 
 
ANTHONY R. STOCKELMAN, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Appellant (Defendant Below), 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Appellee (Plaintiff Below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Jackson Circuit Court, No. 36C01-0505-MR-002 
The Honorable William E. Vance, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
 
June 20, 2007 
 
Shepard, Chief Justice. 
 
Appellant Anthony R. Stockelman pled guilty to charges of murder and child molesting 
that arose out of the death of ten-year-old Katlyn Maria Collman.  Stockelman challenges the 
propriety of the sentence of life without parole imposed by the trial court for the murder.  We 
affirm. 
 
Katie Collman left her home in Crothersville, Indiana at about 3 p.m. on January 25, 
2005, to run an errand for her mother at the local Dollar General Store.  She was never seen alive 
again.  The State Police discovered her body five days later in a waterway at nearby Cypress 
Lake.  The State Police Laboratory matched Stockelman’s DNA to swabs taken from the 
victim’s body, to cigarette butts at the crime scene, and to red carpet fibers taken from her body 
and from the carpet in the home of Stockelman’s mother.  A local witness had seen the victim 
riding in a Ford truck that matched Stockelman’s.   
 
The State charged Stockelman with murder, child molesting as a class A felony, and 
criminal confinement.  It requested the death penalty, alleging the victim’s age as the aggravating 
circumstance.  A year or so later, Stockelman and the State entered into a plea bargain.  
Stockelman agreed to plead guilty to murder and child molesting and to waive his right to have 
the State submit aggravating circumstances to a jury.  The State agreed to drop the death penalty 
and dismiss the confinement charge.  The sentencing was thus left to the court alone.  After a 
hearing involving several witnesses, it imposed life without parole for the murder, followed by 
thirty years for child molesting. 
 
Stockelman requests that we revise the sentence for murder, citing the provision of 
Indiana Rule of Appellate Procedure 7(B): “The Court may revise a sentence authorized by 
statute if, after due consideration of the trial court’s decision, the Court finds that the sentence is 
inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender.”  In the main, 
he contends that the trial court did not adequately recognize or give adequate weight to four 
mitigating circumstances. 
 
First, Stockelman argues that he had no significant history of prior criminal conduct.  His 
only two convictions were misdemeanors, one twenty years in the past for purchasing beer for 
his younger brother and the other for battery.  The State responds that this record bears some 
similarity to one we declared adequate for rejecting a claim that the defendant had no significant 
prior record.  Bacher v. State, 722 N.E.2d 799 (Ind. 2000).  It also notes that witnesses called by 
Stockelman during the sentencing hearing testified that he had become “deeper and deeper” into 
drugs and that he had abused his former wife on multiple occasions, demonstrating prior criminal 
conduct.  (Sentencing Hr’g Tr. at 14, 32.) 
 
 
2
On this record, we find ourselves unable to say that the trial judge erred in rejecting 
Stockelman’s claim that he had lived a relatively crime-free life. 
 
Second, Stockelman says that he committed the crime under the influence of extreme 
mental or emotional disturbance.  Ind. Code Ann. § 35-50-2-9(c)(2) (West 2007).  Stockelman 
testified that his father had died six months before the crime after a long bout with cancer.  Other 
witnesses testified that he had been very close to his father, that he cared for his father while he 
was dying, and that his father’s death had a great impact on Stockelman’s mental and emotional 
state.   
 
The State responds that there is no clinical evidence as respects Stockelman’s mental 
condition, and it points to testimony by defense witnesses.  Stockelman’s brother testified that he 
seemed “withdrawn” as a result of his father’s death, and a family friend said that while 
Stockelman was “very upset” about the passing, it was “nothing . . . out of the ordinary.”  
(Sentencing Hr’g Tr. at 47, 64.)  On balance, this proposed mitigator seems to have modest 
weight at most. 
 
Third, Stockelman correctly says that pleading guilty can be a mitigating circumstance for 
sentencing purposes.  The State replies that Stockelman has already gained a significant benefit 
from his plea bargain, namely, managing to take the death penalty off the table.  As above, we 
conclude that this mitigator carries modest weight at best. 
 
Fourth, Stockelman argues that his incarceration will impose a significant hardship on his 
two sons, aged six and thirteen.  Witnesses testified during the sentencing hearing that 
Stockelman had been active in the life of his sons and that they enjoyed a “very close 
relationship.”  (Id. at 21.)  Those witnesses also testified that the boys were being cared for by 
blood relatives and were generally doing as well as could be expected.  The State notes that 
under any calculation, even if Stockelman received concurrent advisory sentences, the boys 
would be adults before Stockelman was released.  One way or another, it argues, the boys will 
have to spend their young lives without their father.  We think this mitigator carries minimal 
weight. 
 
3
All in all, given the aggravating circumstance of killing a ten-year-old girl, we find 
ourselves unable to say that the trial court was wrong to weigh that aggravator more heavily than 
the proffered mitigators or that the sentence imposed was inappropriate. 
 
We therefore affirm. 
 
Sullivan, Boehm, and Rucker, JJ., concur. 
Dickson, J., concurs in result with separate opinion. 
 
4
Dickson, Justice, concurring in result.   
 
The Court is generous in its treatment of the defendant's appellate presentation.  His brief 
initially asserts only one issue: whether his sentence is appropriate in light of the nature of the 
offense and character of the offender.  Appellant's Br. at 1.  This is the test by which appellate 
courts implement their authority to review and revise criminal sentences.  Ind. Appellate Rule 
7(B).  His summary of argument, however, contends that his sentence is inappropriate "for the 
reason that the trial court failed to consider or give proper weight to the mitigating circumstances 
in this case."  Appellant's Br. at 3.  And the argument section of the defendant's brief does not 
address appropriateness in light of his character or the nature of the offense but discusses only 
his claim that the trial court erred in its consideration of all the mitigating evidence.  This claim 
is for appellate reversal due to trial court abuse of discretion, not a request for the exercise of 
appellate sentencing review authority under Rule 7(B).1       
 
The two criteria to be used for the Rule 7(B) analysis, the nature of the offense and 
character of the offender, are distinct from the aggravating and mitigating circumstances a trial 
court is statutorily required to identify and weigh in its sentencing determination.    
 
But the defendant makes no claim or showing that the nature of his offense calls for 
particular leniency or that there are virtuous aspects of his character that warrant special 
consideration, either or both of which might justify our intervention in the trial court's sentencing 
determination under Appellate Rule 7(B).   On this issue, he presents no argument.   
 
 
 While I agree with the majority's decision to affirm, I quibble with its concluding finding 
that the sentence was appropriate, which suggests that the defendant sought and the court 
exercised the appellate review and revise authority pursuant to Appellate Rule 7(B).     
 
                                             
 
1 The defendant cites Martin v. State, 784 N.E.2d 997, 1013 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), as authority for merging the trial 
court sentencing considerations into the appellate review and revise function under Rule 7(B).  I disagree with the 
Court of Appeals rationale in Martin on this point.        
 
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