Opinion ID: 853717
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Prohibition Against Multiple Punishments

Text: As a final point we consider whether Wise's conviction for arson as a Class A felony and his murder conviction are both supported by this record. Arson as a Class B felony is enhanced to a Class A felony if the fire results in either bodily injury or serious bodily injury to any person other than a defendant. Ind.Code § 35-43-1-1(a) (1998). Accordingly, the jury was instructed that to convict Wise of arson as a Class A felony the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wise knowingly started a fire that resulted in serious bodily injury to Matthew D. Wise; that is: mortal carbon monoxide poisoning and burns. The trial court recognized the then unclear state of the law on this issue, and elected to sustain convictions for both murder and arson as a Class A felony. [3] As this Court recently held in Richardson v. State, 717 N.E.2d 32, 53 (Ind.1999), dual convictions cannot stand if a defendant demonstrate[s] a reasonable possibility that the evidentiary facts used by the fact-finder to establish elements of one offense may also have been used to establish the essential elements of a second challenged offense. Here, the same evidence used by the jury to establish the essential elements of murder was also included among the evidence establishing the essential elements of arson as a Class A felony, and the two cannot stand. Cf. Chapman v. State, 719 N.E.2d 1232, 1234 (Ind.1999). Accordingly, we remand this case to the trial court to reduce Wise's arson conviction to a Class B felony and impose a sentence of twenty years imprisonment on that count. [4]