Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision No. 33A01-1410-MI-451| June 10, 2015 Page 1 of 7

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this 

Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as 

precedent or cited before any court except for the 

purpose of establishing the defense of res judicata, 

collateral estoppel, or the law of the case.

APPELLANT PRO SE

John Lane-El

New Castle, Indiana

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE

Gregory F. Zoeller

Attorney General of Indiana

Aaron T. Craft

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

John Lane-El,

Appellant-Petitioner,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Respondent

June 10, 2015

Court of Appeals Case No.

33A01-1410-MI-451

Appeal from the Henry Circuit Court

The Honorable Kit C. Dean Crane, 

Judge

Trial Court Cause No. 

33C02-1407-MI-69

Mathias, Judge.

[1] John Lane-El (“Lane-El”) appeals from the Henry Circuit Court’s denial of 

Lane-El’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Concluding that Lane-El is not 

entitled to immediate release, we affirm. 
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Facts and Procedural History

[2] The facts underlying this case appear to be relatively undisputed. In August of 

1980, Lane-El pleaded guilty to Class B felony robbery and was sentenced to six 

years. This sentence was ordered to be served consecutively to a fifteen-year 

sentence imposed on another robbery conviction1 and a twelve-year sentence 

imposed on a federal conviction for robbery. 

[3] Lane-El completed his fifteen-year sentence on November 13, 1989, and he 

began to serve his six-year sentence. On March 23, 1992, Lane-El was released 

on parole on the six-year sentence. 

[4] On December 18, 1992, Lane-El was charged with Class A felony rape and 

Class B felony criminal confinement. On January 7, 1993, the State put LaneEl’s parole on hold and began parole revocation proceedings. Lane-El was 

convicted of the rape and confinement charges on August 25, 1993, and was 

subsequently sentenced to twenty years on the rape conviction, plus a thirtyyear habitual offender enhancement, and a concurrent sentence of one and onehalf years on the confinement conviction, for a total of fifty years. 

[5] After his conviction and sentence in that case, Lane-El’s parole was revoked. 

Lane-El claims, and the State does not refute, that Lane-El’s parole was 

revoked solely on the basis of his conviction for rape and confinement. Lane-El 

began serving the remainder of his robbery sentence in 1993, and completed it 

in 1994. At this point, he began to serve his sentences for rape and confinement. 

 1 See Lane v. State, 428 N.E.2d 28 (Ind. 1981). 
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[6] Thereafter, Lane-El filed a petition for post-conviction relief, which the trial 

court granted in 1997. The State appealed, and Lane-El was released on bond 

on December 3, 1997, pending the outcome of the appeal. Lane-El was not free 

for long, though. On April 23, 1998, this court reversed the trial court’s grant of 

Lane-El’s petition for post-conviction relief. See State v. Lane, No. 49A02-9709-

PC-619 (Ind. Ct. App. Apr. 23, 1998) (memorandum decision). Our supreme 

court denied transfer on August 19, 1998. See State v. Lane, 706 N.E.2d 168 (Ind. 

Aug. 19, 1998) (table). Accordingly, on November 9, 1998, Lane-El’s appeal 

bond was revoked, and his convictions and sentences were reinstated. 

[7] On July 1, 2014, Lane-El filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus against 

Keith Butts, the superintendent of the New Castle Correctional Facility in 

which Lane-El is incarcerated. In his petition, Lane-El claimed that he was 

being illegally detained and that he should have been discharged from 

incarceration on February 14, 2014. Lane-El claimed that his parole revocation, 

which was based on his convictions for rape and confinement, was invalid 

because his convictions for rape and confinement were overturned by the postconviction court. Lane-El further argued that the time he served after his parole 

was revoked should have been credited not to his sentence for robbery, but to 

his sentence for rape. 

[8] The State responded to Lane-El’s petition by filing a motion to dismiss/motion 

for summary judgment. The trial court granted the State’s motion to dismiss on 

October 14, 2014. Lane-El filed a notice of appeal on October 24, 2014, and this 

appeal ensued. 
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Discussion and Decision

[9] Indiana Code section 34-25.5-1-1 provides that “[e]very person whose liberty is 

restrained, under any pretense whatever, may prosecute a writ of habeas corpus

to inquire into the cause of the restraint, and shall be delivered from the 

restraint if the restraint is illegal.” The purpose of a writ of habeas corpus is to 

determine the lawfulness of custody or detention of the defendant and may not 

be used to determine collateral matters not affecting the custody process. 

Hardley v. State, 893 N.E.2d 740, 742 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008). A petitioner is 

entitled to habeas corpus only if he is entitled to his immediate release from 

unlawful custody. Id. We review the trial court’s habeas decision for an abuse of 

discretion. Id.

[10] Lane-El’s argument is not easy to follow,

2 but it appears to be this: the postconviction court’s act of vacating his convictions for rape and confinement 

made the revocation of his parole, which was based on these convictions, a 

nullity; because his parole was not properly revoked, he completed his sentence 

on the robbery conviction, and when he was re-incarcerated for rape and 

confinement, he should not have been ordered to serve any remaining portion 

of his robbery sentence but should instead have began to immediately serve his 

sentence for rape and confinement. According to Lane-El’s calculations, his 

 2

 We recognize that Lane-El is proceeding pro se, and we have endeavored to address the issues he presents 

on the merits. However, we note that pro se litigants are held to the same standards as licensed attorneys. 

Whatley v. State, 937 N.E.2d 1238, 1240 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010). Accordingly, we will not and may not become 

advocates for Lane-El by attempting to make his arguments for him. 
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sentence for rape was completed on February 14, 2014, and his continued 

incarceration is unlawful. We disagree. 

[11] Lane-El’s argument is based on several flawed presumptions. First, he assumes 

that the vacation of his convictions and sentences by the post-conviction court 

automatically nullified or voided the revocation of his parole. However, he cites 

no authority to support this proposition. Even if the revocation of Lane-El’s

parole was based, as he claims, solely on the evidence of his convictions for 

rape and confinement, this does not mean that the vacation of his convictions 

voided the revocation of his parole. Also, nothing in the record indicates that 

Lane-El attempted to have the revocation of his parole reversed. In this sense, 

the facts of the present case are distinguishable from those in Brown v. State, 458 

N.E.2d 245 (Ind. Ct. App. 1983). 

[12] In Brown, the defendant’s probation was revoked based solely upon the fact that 

he was subsequently convicted for another crime. However, when his 

subsequent conviction was overturned on appeal, the defendant filed a petition 

for post-conviction relief claiming that the revocation of his parole was not 

supported by the evidence. 

[13] On appeal from the post-conviction court’s denial of the defendant’s motion, 

we held that if the revocation of a defendant’s probation was based solely upon 

a conviction that was subsequently overturned on appeal, additional proof is 

required to support the revocation. Id. at 249. Here, however, Lane-El did not 

file any post-conviction petition seeking to overturn the revocation of his parole. 
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Thus, Brown does not support Lane-El’s contention that the vacation of his rape 

and confinement convictions automatically voided the revocation of his parole. 

Cf. id. at 250 (noting that the recommended procedure in the event of a reversal 

of a conviction which formed the basis of a revocation of probation is to hold a 

new hearing to reconsider the prior revocation at which the court may hear all 

pertinent evidence). 

[14] More importantly, however, Lane-El’s argument all but ignores the fact that the 

post-conviction court’s vacation of Lane-El’s convictions was reversed by this 

court on appeal. Brown is therefore completely inapposite. Indeed, as Lane-El 

himself notes, the effect of a reversal by a court on appeal is to vacate and 

nullify the lower court’s judgment and return the parties to the positions they 

held before the entry of the lower court’s judgment. See Silverman v. Villegas, 894 

N.E.2d 249, 259 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008) (citing Doughty v. State Dep’t of Pub. 

Welfare, 233 Ind. 475, 477, 121 N.E.2d 645, 646 (1954)). Thus, the postconviction court’s vacation of Lane-El’s rape and confinement convictions was 

itself vacated and nullified by this court on appeal. Thus, Lane-El’s convictions 

were reinstated. See id. 

[15] Although Lane-El now claims that the DOC never held any administrative 

hearings to reinstate the revocation of his parole, this again presumes that his 

parole revocation was somehow automatically voided when his convictions 

were temporarily vacated by the post-conviction court. Because Lane-El’s

parole revocation was never reversed, the DOC had no need to reinstate his 

parole revocation. Moreover, Lane-El’s convictions were reinstated by effect of 
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this court’s opinion reversing the post-conviction court’s vacation of Lane-El’s 

convictions. 

[16] Because we reject the premise of Lane-El’s arguments, we affirm the judgment 

of the trial court denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. 

[17] Affirmed. 

May, J., and Robb, J., concur.