Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 27A02-1610-CR-2325 | August 1, 2017 Page 1 of 14

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT

Evan K. Hammond

Office of the Grant County Public 

Defender

Marion, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Curtis T. Hill, Jr.

Attorney General of Indiana

Eric P. Babbs

Angela Sanchez

Deputy Attorneys General

Indianapolis, Indiana

I N T H E

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Aaron L. Fansler,

Appellant-Defendant,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Plaintiff

August 1, 2017

Court of Appeals Case No.

27A02-1610-CR-2325

Appeal from the Grant Circuit 

Court

The Honorable Mark E. Spitzer, 

Judge

Trial Court Cause No.

27C01-1506-F3-15

Mathias, Judge.

[1] Aaron L. Fansler (“Fansler”) was convicted after a jury trial in Grant Circuit

Court of dealing heroin and other drug crimes, and was sentenced to ten years 

in the Department of Correction. Fansler now appeals the admission of two 
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self-incriminating statements and the exercise of the court’s sentencing 

discretion.

[2] We affirm.

Facts and Procedural Posture

[3] On June 18, 2015, Fansler received a request over a social media network to 

connect with a user who appeared to be a twenty-one-year-old woman named 

“Kenzie Allen.” “Kenzie Allen” was in fact an unsworn member of a local lawenforcement drug-crime task force conducting an undercover investigation. 

Fansler accepted the request. By private messages exchanged over the network, 

and then by text messages over their cell phones, “Kenzie” invited Fansler to a 

room at a local hotel. The hotel owner was friendly with police and would 

allow them the use of a room for undercover operations without charge.

“Kenzie” wanted to buy two “points,” or tenths of a gram, of heroin from 

Fansler.

[4] On the evening of June 19, 2015, lured by the prospects of sex, companionship, 

and a drug sale, Fansler went to the hotel room indicated by “Kenzie.” There, 

he found “Kenzie’s brother,” a Grant County sheriff’s deputy and a member of 

the same drug-crime task force. “Kenzie” was not in the hotel room, but 

Fansler was assured she would arrive soon. As Fansler stepped outside the 

hotel to wait, he was arrested by waiting law enforcement officers and taken 

back to “Kenzie’s” hotel room. Once inside, Fansler was interrogated and 

searched. Fansler had brought with him more than seven grams net weight of 
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heroin, more than a dozen clonazepam and oxycodone pills, numerous empty 

plastic bags, a digital scale, a hypodermic syringe, a tourniquet, and more than 

two hundred dollars cash.

[5] On June 24, 2015, Fansler was charged by information in Grant Circuit Court 

with Level 3 possession of heroin with intent to deliver, Level 6 felony 

possession of heroin, Class A misdemeanor possession of a controlled 

substance, and Class A misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia. Fansler’s 

case was tried to a Grant County jury over two days, August 1 and August 2, 

2016. Fansler admitted the possession but denied the intent to deliver, and 

raised the affirmative defense of entrapment. However, the jury was not

persuaded and found him guilty as charged on all four counts. 

[6] At a sentencing hearing on September 9, 2016, Fansler was sentenced to a 

thirteen-year term on the dealing charge, ten years executed in the Department 

of Correction and three years suspended. Fansler was further sentenced to 

concurrent terms of two years executed for possession of heroin, one year 

executed for possession of a controlled substance, and one year executed for 

possession of paraphernalia. This appeal timely followed.

Discussion and Decision

[7] Fansler presents two issues for our review: whether the trial court abused its 

discretion by admitting two self-incriminating statements made by Fansler to 

law enforcement officers after being Mirandized in the hotel room, over 

Fansler’s objection on the basis of Indiana Evidence Rule 617; and whether the 
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sentencing court abused its discretion by failing to find a significant mitigating 

circumstance clearly supported by the record and advanced for consideration.

I. Admission of Fansler’s Statements Was Harmless Error

[8] At trial, a witness for the State testified to two self-incriminating statements 

made by Fansler in the hotel room. The first was related as follows:

[State:] What questions were asked of [Fansler] after [the 

warning required by] Miranda [v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 

436 (1966)] was read to him?

[Defense objection overruled.]

[Witness:] I asked him where the two points of heroin were.1

[State:] And what was his response?

[Witness:] Stated that they should be in the baggies.

Tr. Vol. I, p. 147. Two packages of heroin weighing two tenths of a gram net 

each were recovered from a cigarette pack carried by Fansler.

[9] From the same cigarette pack, law enforcement recovered “another clear plastic 

baggy that contained a large amount of gray compressed powder[,]” eventually 

determined to be more heroin. Id. at 149. In connection with this larger 

package, Fansler’s second statement was related by the same witness as follows:

 

1 Two tenths of a gram, or “a couple points,” was the amount of heroin Fansler had agreed to sell “Kenzie.” 

Ex. Vol., State’s Ex. 2 (text messages); Tr. Vol. I, pp. 73, 77-78, 211-12.
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[State:] Did you ask [Fansler] about the large compressed 

powder when you found it?

[Witness:] I did.

[State:] What did you ask him?

[Witness:] I asked him why he didn’t tell us about that item 

being in the cigarettes in his possession.

[State:] And what did he say?

[Witness:] He didn’t want to get caught with it. He didn’t want 

to go jail for it.

Id. at 152.

[10] On appeal, Fansler claims the trial court reversibly erred by admitting these 

statements contrary to the mandate of Indiana Evidence Rule 617. We review 

challenges to admission of evidence at trial for prejudicial abuse of the trial 

court’s discretion. Williams v. State, 43 N.E.3d 578, 581 (Ind. 2015). A trial 

court abuses its discretion by ruling in a way clearly against the logic and effect 

of the facts and circumstances before it, or by misinterpreting the law. Id. In 

reviewing whether an abuse of discretion was prejudicial, we assess the 

probable impact of the improperly admitted evidence on the jury in light of the 

properly admitted evidence. Id. If the conviction is supported by independent, 

properly admitted evidence of guilt such that there is little likelihood the 

improperly admitted evidence contributed to the verdict, the error is harmless. 

Blount v. State, 22 N.E.3d 559, 564 (Ind. 2014).
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[11] Indiana Evidence Rule 617 provides that, “[i]n a felony criminal prosecution, 

evidence of a statement made by a person during a Custodial Interrogation in a 

Place of Detention shall not be admitted against the person unless an Electronic 

Recording of the statement was made, preserved, and is available at trial, except 

upon clear and convincing proof” that one of several exceptions applies. Ind. 

Evidence Rule 617(a). One such exception is for statements made as “part of a 

routine processing or ‘booking’ of the person[.]” Id. at (a)(1). A “Place of 

Detention” is “a jail, law enforcement agency station house, or any other 

stationary or mobile building owned or operated by a law enforcement agency 

at which persons are detained in connection with criminal investigations.” Id. at 

(b).

[12] Here, no electronic recording of Fansler’s interrogation in the hotel was 

available at trial. Fansler argues that the two self-incriminating statements were 

made in the course of a custodial interrogation, that they were not made in the 

course of routine booking or processing, that the hotel room was a place of 

detention, and that therefore the rule required exclusion of the statements. The 

State concedes that the statements were made in the course of a custodial 

interrogation, but argues that they were made in the course of routine booking 

and that the hotel room was not a place of detention. The trial court ruled that 

the hotel room was not a place of detention because it was “operat[ed]” by the 

hotel, and that the statements were admissible in any event under the booking 

exception, analogizing the questioning of Fansler to a search incident to arrest. 

Appellant’s App. p. 62.
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[13] We are not inclined to read the booking exception as broadly, nor the place-ofdetention requirement as narrowly, as the State urges. Rule 617 is of recent 

vintage and has never been construed by our supreme court. Only one 

published decision of this court has interpreted the “place of detention” 

requirement, Steele v. State, 975 N.E.2d 430, 431 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012), trans. 

denied, and none of our published decisions have construed the booking 

exception. In Steele, without exhaustive analysis, we held that a gas station to 

which a police officer had transported a drunk-driving arrestee for field sobriety 

testing was not a place of detention. Id. at 432. 

[14] In this case, the hotel room was operated by the police and was used to detain 

Fansler in connection with a criminal investigation. The drug-crime task force 

investigating Fansler had used the hotel “a couple times” for other 

investigations in the year preceding Fansler’s arrest. Tr. p. 49. The owner of the 

hotel was “police friendly” and allowed police use of his rooms without charge. 

Id. The police had the opportunity to set up the location and prepare it for 

Fansler’s arrival, and lay in wait for him there. The police thus had possession 

and control over the room, plus ample opportunity to prepare the room for the 

custodial interrogation police knew or anticipated would result from Fansler’s 

arrest there. Under these circumstances, the hotel room was a place of 

detention.

[15] As for the booking exception, the trial court analogized it to searches incident 

to arrest, an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, but we 

think the language of Rule 617 plainly evokes the formal, administrative setting 
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of the routine-booking exception to the warning requirement of Miranda v. 

Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and related Fourth Amendment contexts. See, e.g., 

Maryland v. King, 133 S.Ct. 1958, 1971 (2013) (holding buccal DNA swabs for 

felony arrestees reasonable as part of routine booking procedure); Pennsylvania 

v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582, 600–02 (1990) (plur.) (holding admission of suspect’s 

unwarned statements giving biographical information not in violation of 

Miranda because within a “routine booking question” exception for answers to 

questions reasonably related to administrative, record-keeping purposes and to 

completion of booking or pretrial services). These doctrines contemplate 

“routine administrative procedures at a police station house incident to booking 

and jailing the suspect” and “formal[] process[ing] into police custody.” King, 

133 S.Ct. at 1971. The same setting is contemplated by, for example, “the 

public records exception [to the rule against hearsay] permit[ting] admission of 

police records created in connection with routine booking procedures.” Fowler v. 

State, 929 N.E.2d 875, 879 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010) (noting as examples fingerprint 

cards, mugshots, and booking cards recording biographical information), trans. 

denied.

[16] In this light, we conclude that, irrespective of whether the precise focus should 

be on the nature of the questions asked (administrative or investigative) or on 

the character of the setting (formal or informal), Fansler’s answers given 

minutes after his arrest in an undercover drug operation to questions of the type 

“Where is the heroin?” were not statements made in the course of routine 

processing or booking.
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[17] We agree with the State, however, that admission of the challenged statements

was entirely harmless. We note that Fansler has not undertaken to demonstrate 

prejudice from admission of the statements; his brief argues only that admission 

was erroneous. See Ind. Appellate Rule 66(A) (harmless error no basis for relief 

on appeal).

[18] The challenged statements were self-incriminating only to the extent that, by 

them, Fansler admitted to possessing the heroin. Neither statement was more 

than minimally probative of Fansler’s intent to deliver the heroin, nor of his 

predisposition to deliver the heroin, the State’s rebuttal to his entrapment 

defense. See Scott v. State, 772 N.E.2d 473, 474–75 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002), trans. 

denied. However, Fansler himself admitted possessing the heroin in open court

before the jury (and, indeed, could have hardly denied it):

[Counsel:] No doubt about it though, you possessed those 

items [recovered by law enforcement at the hotel 

room] on your person, correct?

[Fansler:] Yes I did.

[Counsel:] And you’re freely admitting that here today with 

this jury?

[Fansler:] Yes I am.

[Counsel:] But absolutely your intent was not to give or sell 

[“Kenzie”] anything?

[Fansler:] No it was not.
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Tr. Vol. I, p. 205; see also id. at 224-25 (Fansler under cross-examination 

admitting possession but denying intent to deliver).

[19] To the minimal extent that the challenged statements may have been probative 

of Fansler’s intent or predisposition to deliver the heroin, those facts were so 

clearly proved by Fansler’s and “Kenzie’s” text messages, and Fansler’s 

execution of the arrangements made thereby, that there is no likelihood the 

challenged statements contributed to the jury’s verdict as to these issues:

[“Kenzie”:] Tomorrow I’m trying to get to Indy to get 

something but not sure it’s gonna happen 😞 But 

maybe Saturday if I don’t have to work [. . .]

[Fansler:] but whats up wit indy y u going there???

[“Kenzie”:] I got a guy I’m suppose to get some shit from but he 

will probably try to screw me over again lol [. . .]

[Fansler:] what u going up there ta grab[?] might b able ta help 

u out nstead wasting gas time n money going all 

way up there

[“Kenzie”:] I need to get a couple points

[Fansler:] A cpl points . . . . all way ta indy for that . . . . thats 

crazy what u paying for em up there[?]

[“Kenzie”:] Yeah tell me I hate driving all the way up there I 

pay dude 35 but he cut me a deal

[Fansler:] 35 a p . . . . . geeeez that’s crazy i let mine go for 30 

[. . .]

[“Kenzie”:] I’ll pay 30 easy is it good shit?
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[Fansler:] Yea gotta give me a min ta get going but yea uts 

good

[“Kenzie”:] Yeah cool I’m running errands I’ll hit u up in a few 

maybe an hour if that’s good with you?

[Fansler:] Yea just lmk [“let me know”] when,ever ur done

Ex. Vol., State’s Ex. 2 (sic passim). This exchange unambiguously showed both 

Fansler’s predisposition (“i let mine go for 30”) and intent (“Yea gotta give me 

a min ta get going but yea uts good”) to deliver the heroin from Fansler’s own 

mouth. Id. The two challenged statements, to the extent they speak to these 

issues at all, cannot have contributed to the jury’s decision.

[20] Though the challenged statements were improperly admitted, in light of 

Fansler’s admissions at trial, the generally uncontested nature of his possessing 

the heroin, and the wealth of direct and circumstantial evidence from which the 

jury could infer intent and predisposition to deliver, there is no likelihood that 

the challenged statements contributed to the verdict. The error was therefore 

harmless and does not entitle Fansler to relief on appeal.

II. The Sentencing Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion

[21] At Fansler’s September 9, 2016, sentencing hearing, the court found as follows:

Certainly the aggravating circumstance of your criminal history . 

. . is a big one, Mr. Fansler. As well as the fact that you were on 

probation at the time the crime was . . . committed. I’ll accept the 

mitigator that incarceration would be a hardship on your family. 

I’ll accept the mitigator that . . . the offense didn’t cause serious 

harm to another person given the fact that it was a sting 
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operation . . . . [I]f the victim causing the offense is a mitigator, 

it’s a mild one, . . . at best. . . . Perhaps you had . . . a substance . 

. . dependency, but . . . you also were a dealer and . . . I think all 

the circumstances indicate that. . . . So I feel that the aggravating 

factors do outweigh the mitigating factors . . . .

Tr. Vol. II, pp. 6-7.

[22] In its judgment order, the court restated its findings as follows:

For its sentencing statement, the court [sic] finds the following 

aggravating circumstances:

1. The Defendant has a lengthy history of criminal and juvenile 

offenses.

2. The Defendant was on probation for a felony offense when he 

committed this offense.

The Court [sic] finds the following mitigating factors:

1. Incarceration may be a hardship on the dependents of the 

Defendant.

2. The crime in question did not cause serious harm.

In considering the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the 

Court [sic] determines the circumstances justify the imposition of 

an enhanced sentence.

2

Appellant’s App. p. 98.

 

2 That is, a sentence higher than the nine-year advisory sentence for Level 3 felonies. Ind. Code § 35-50-2-

5(b).
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[23] On appeal, Fansler claims the court “failed to consider that the victim of the 

crime induced or facilitated the offense” in mitigation of his sentence. 

Appellant’s Br. at 12; see Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.1(b)(3) (court may weigh same 

in mitigation). We may review a sentence for abuse of the sentencing court’s 

discretion. Anglemyer v. State, 868 N.E.2d 482, 490 (Ind. 2007). “An abuse of 

discretion occurs if the decision is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts 

and circumstances before the court or the reasonable, probable, and actual 

deductions drawn therefrom.” Baumholser v. State, 62 N.E.3d 411, 416 (Ind. Ct. 

App. 2016), trans. denied.

[24] Claims for “failure to ‘properly weigh’” aggravating and mitigating factors lie 

beyond such review, Anglemyer, 868 N.E.2d at 491, but the court abuses its 

discretion by failing to find “significant” mitigators, id. at 493, that are “clearly 

supported by the record and advanced for consideration[.]” Id. at 491. It was 

Fansler’s burden to establish that the mitigating evidence was both significant 

and clearly supported by the record. Id. at 493. Remand for resentencing is an 

appropriate remedy if “we cannot say with confidence that the trial court would 

have imposed the same sentence had it properly considered reasons that enjoy 

support in the record.” Id. at 491. However, “the relative weight or value 

assignable to [mitigators] properly found, or [to] those that should have been 

found, is not subject” to our review. Green v. State, 65 N.E.3d 620, 636 (Ind. Ct. 

App. 2016).

[25] Here, the court noted from the bench its view of Fansler’s proffered mitigator: 

“[I]f the victim causing the offense is a mitigator, it’s a mild one, . . . at best.” 
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Tr. Vol. II, p. 6. Though the court’s judgment order did not refer to this 

mitigator in terms, it was apparently given consideration under the rubric of 

“not caus[ing] serious harm.” Appellant’s App. p. 98; see Tr. Vol. II, p. 6 (trial 

court “accept[ed] the mitigator that . . . the offense didn’t cause serious harm to 

another person given the fact that it was a sting operation” (emphasis added) and 

fact that investigation was “sting operation” identical to Fansler’s proffered

mitigator). In any event, the trial court clearly heard and considered Fansler’s 

proffered mitigator, as Fansler himself concedes. Appellant’s Br. at 12. The 

court simply did not think the mitigator was entitled to any great weight. Tr. 

Vol. II, p. 6 (“[I]t’s a mild one, . . . at best.”). We will not revisit that 

determination here. There was no abuse of discretion.

Conclusion

[26] Though admission at trial of Fansler’s two self-incriminating statements was 

error, it was harmless. The sentencing court did not abuse its discretion by 

failing to find Fansler’s proffered mitigator. The judgment against Fansler is 

therefore affirmed.

[27] Affirmed.

Kirsch, J., and Altice, J., concur.