Opinion ID: 2072212
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Indiana Territorial Jurisdiction

Text: When the State of Indiana seeks to enforce its criminal laws by prosecuting conduct that occurs on the Ohio River but on the Kentucky side of Indiana's southern territorial boundary, there are two separate issues. The first is whether Indiana is authorized to exercise concurrent jurisdiction over the entire Ohio River, including that portion beyond Indiana's territorial boundaries. If such right to concurrent jurisdiction exists, a second question arises: whether the Indiana General Assembly has authorized criminal prosecutions to the full extent of such potential concurrent jurisdiction. Concurrent jurisdiction on rivers is the jurisdiction of two powers over one and the same place. Nielsen v. State of Oregon (1909), 212 U.S. 315, 317, 29 S.Ct. 383, 384, 53 L.Ed. 528, 529. Concurrent Indiana jurisdiction over the Ohio River has been contemplated by both state and federal law. In 1784, Virginia conveyed its territory northwest of the Ohio River to the United States. In 1789, the Virginia Compact, enacted by the Virginia legislature, ceded territory for the formation of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The Virginia Compact provided for the creation of Kentucky upon the condition, inter alia, that the use and navigation of the river Ohio, so far as the territory of the proposed state, or the territory which shall remain within the limits of this commonwealth lies thereon, shall be free and common to the citizens of the United States, and the respective jurisdictions of the Commonwealth and of the proposed state on the river as aforesaid, shall be concurrent only with the states which may possess the opposite shores of the said river. Wedding v. Meyler (1904), 192 U.S. 573, 581-82, 24 S.Ct. 322, 323, 48 L.Ed. 570, 574 (citing Virginia Compact, 13 Hening, St. at L. 17). What the Virginia compact most certainly conferred on the States north of the Ohio, was the right to administer the law below low-water mark on the river... . Wedding, 192 U.S. at 584, 24 S.Ct. at 324, 48 L.Ed. at 575 (emphasis added). In 1791, the United States Congress ratified the Virginia Compact, pursuant to Article 4, § 3 of the United States Constitution. In Commonwealth of Kentucky v. State of Indiana (1985), 474 U.S. 1, 2, 106 S.Ct. 304, 304, 88 L.Ed.2d 1, 1, the United States Supreme Court confirmed that Indiana and Kentucky each have concurrent jurisdiction over the Ohio River. Indiana became a state in 1816, and its revised 1851 constitution provides that [t]he State of Indiana shall ... have concurrent jurisdiction, in civil and criminal cases, with the State of Kentucky on the Ohio river, and with the State of Illinois on the Wabash river, so far as said rivers form the common boundary between this State and said States respectively. Ind. Const. art. 14, § 2 (1851). The United States Supreme Court has recognized that two states, in conjunction with one another through respective legislative action, may opt to exercise concurrent jurisdiction. Although expressly noting its decision was confined to the precise question presented, in Nielsen, 212 U.S. at 320, 29 S.Ct. at 384, 53 L.Ed. at 530, the Court observed, [w]here an act is malum in se prohibited and punishable by the laws of both States, the one first acquiring jurisdiction of the person may prosecute the offense, and its judgment is a finality in both States, so that one convicted or acquitted in the courts of the one State cannot be prosecuted for the same offense in the courts of the other. Id. The Nielsen Court concluded that, absent such interstate legislative mutuality, one State cannot enforce its opinion against that of the other, at least as to an act done within the limits of that other State. Id. at 321, 29 S.Ct. at 385, 53 L.Ed. at 530. Thus it is apparent that Indiana is constitutionally authorized to enact laws that would extend its exercise of criminal jurisdiction over the whole of the Ohio River. The remaining question is whether Indiana's present statutes implement such concurrent jurisdiction. Indiana courts have only such jurisdiction as is granted to them by the state constitution and statutes. Carpenter v. State (1977), 266 Ind. 98, 101, 360 N.E.2d 839, 841. The Constitution of Indiana, Art. 7, sec. 8, states: The Circuit Courts shall have such civil and criminal jurisdiction as may be prescribed by law. The various Superior Courts, since created by the legislature, have only such jurisdiction as is granted by statute. Wedmore v. State (1954), 233 Ind. 545, 550, 122 N.E.2d 1, 3-4. The current Indiana criminal jurisdiction statute, Ind. Code § 35-41-1-1, applicable at the time of the charged offenses, unambiguously declares: (a) A person may be convicted under Indiana law of an offense if: (1) Either the conduct that is an element of the offense, the result that is an element, or both, occur in Indiana; ... . (b) When the offense is homicide, either the death of the victim or bodily impact causing death constitutes a result under subdivision (a)(1) of this section. If the body of a homicide victim is found in Indiana, it is presumed that the result occurred in Indiana. [Emphasis added.] Where statutory language `is plain and free from ambiguity, and the meaning expressed is definite, a literal interpretation of the statute should be adopted.' Rogers v. Calumet Nat'l Bank (1938), 213 Ind. 576, 583, 12 N.E.2d 261, 264-65, (quoting Pere Marquette R.R. Co. v. Baertz (1905), 36 Ind. App. 408, 74 N.E. 51). When a statute is clear and unambiguous, there is no need to apply any rules of construction other than that requiring words and phrases to be taken in their plain, ordinary, and usual sense. State Bd. of Tax Comm'rs v. Jewell Grain Co., Inc. (1990), Ind., 556 N.E.2d 920, 921; State v. Indiana-Kentucky Elec. Corp. (1982), Ind. App., 436 N.E.2d 352, 356, reh'g granted (1982), 438 N.E.2d 782. Clear and unambiguous statutory meaning leaves no room for judicial construction. Community Hosp. of Anderson and Madison County v. McKnight (1986), Ind., 493 N.E.2d 775, 777. We find no ambiguity in the phrase occur in Indiana and thus decline to engage in statutory construction to determine the meaning to be given. [3] The plain, ordinary, and usual meaning of the statutory language clearly establishes in Indiana as a prerequisite for Indiana criminal prosecutions and thus restricts the power to exercise criminal jurisdiction to Indiana's actual territorial boundaries. It does not authorize concurrent criminal jurisdiction for offenses committed on parts of the Ohio River outside Indiana's established territorial limits. This conclusion is not altered by Indiana's Ohio River shoreline county venue statute, Ind. Code § 35-32-2-1(g), which provides: If an offense is committed on the portions of the Ohio or Wabash Rivers where they form a part of the boundaries of this state, trial may be had in the county that is adjacent to the river and whose boundaries, if projected across the river, would include the place where the offense was committed. Venue and jurisdiction are not the same. Green v. State (1952), 230 Ind. 400, 402, 103 N.E.2d 429, 430, cert. denied, 343 U.S. 987, 72 S.Ct. 1084, 96 L.Ed. 1374; Anderson v. State (1983), Ind. App., 452 N.E.2d 173, 175. The venue statutes and rules do not confer jurisdiction but rather prescribe the location at which trial proceedings are to occur from among the courts empowered to exercise jurisdiction. The authority of the State of Indiana to institute criminal prosecutions is determined by the jurisdictional statute, Ind. Code § 35-41-1-1. The venue statute applies only to those cases properly subject to the state's criminal jurisdiction. Thus the venue statute, Ind. Code § 35-32-2-1(g), cannot expand the scope of criminal jurisdiction prescribed in Ind. Code § 35-41-1-1. We are also cognizant that early Indiana cases, decided before the enactment of the present occur in Indiana limitation in Ind. Code § 35-41-1-1(a), have asserted full concurrent criminal jurisdiction over the Ohio River. In Carlisle v. State (1869), 32 Ind. 55, a prosecution for murder was authorized where the evidence tended to prove that the crime was committed on the Ohio river, outside the territorial limits of Spencer county, but opposite thereto. Id. at 55-56. However, the present criminal jurisdictional statute was not then in force, and the Court applied an 1852 enactment expressly providing that the Indiana counties bordering the Ohio River shall have jurisdiction of all offenses committed against the penal laws of this State on said river, opposite to said counties respectively. Id. at 56. Similarly, Dougan v. State (1890), 125 Ind. 130, 25 N.E. 171 (violation of statute prohibiting common labor on Sunday) and Welsh v. State (1890), 126 Ind. 71, 25 N.E. 883 (conviction for unlicensed sale of beer), held that Indiana could properly exercise jurisdiction over the Ohio River concurrently with Kentucky, in part relying upon Section 1579, R.S. 1881 which provided, inter alia, that the court of a county bordering on the Ohio River could assert jurisdiction over all offenses occurring upon the river opposite to that county. Historical contrasts notwithstanding, the extent of authorized criminal jurisdiction of the trial court in the present case is governed by the present criminal jurisdiction statute, Ind. Code § 35-41-1-1(a).