Court Opinion

ID: 9703564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:00:33.423897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:50.036396
License: Public Domain

MAY, Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe the evidence is insufficient to support Taylor's conviction, I respectfully dissent.
*1029The majority supports its decision, in part, with A.E.B., wherein we affirmed a trial court's decision a student had committed criminal trespass at her school because she "violated whatever contract existed when she interfered with the educational activities at [the school] to the point where she committed the crime of disorderly conduct." A.E.B., 756 N.E.2d at 540. However, A.E.B. is not dispositive of this case because the record does not reflect Taylor was engaged in disorderly conduct or any other criminal activity. Accordingly, assuming as we did in A.L.B. that a student has a contractual interest in being at school, the State has not demonstrated Taylor "abandoned whatever contractual interest [he] had in the school property." Id. at 541.
Nor does the fact the police officer asked Taylor to leave support a finding that Taylor no longer had a contractual interest. In Woods v. State, 708 N.E.2d 1115 (Ind.Ct.App.1998), Woods was convicted of criminal trespass after she was asked to leave a health club but refused. On January 7, 2002, Woods went to the club and was told her membership had expired. Woods had renewed her membership on January 2, 1997, but apparently her payment had not yet appeared on the database available to the receptionist. The club's records later indicated Woods' payment had been posted on January .6. We held Woods retained a contractual right to remain on the premises because her membership contract granted her unlimited 'access to the facilities. We determined this was an undisputed factual basis for Woods' belief she had a contractual right to be on the premises. We held Woods' belief and her bona fide claim of right defeated the mens rea requirement of the criminal trespass statute and rendered her conviction erroneous.4 Id. at 1117.
Pursuant to Woods, if Taylor had a contractual interest in being on the school property at noon on a school day, he could not be guilty of criminal trespass even after Officer McClendon told him to leave.5 See also Steele v. State, 191 Ind. 350, 132 N.E. 739 (1921) ("the appellant, being a subtenant ... was there lawfully, which lawful occupancy and possession cannot be made unlawful in the sense of making such occupancy a violation of the criminal statute of tresﬁass, by being notified to depart from the premises. ...").
The majority holds: "Even assuming that a student has a contractual interest in school property, based on A.E.B., we con*1030clude that such an interest is limited temporally to when taking classes or engaged in other school activities and limited spatially to areas necessary to the attendance function." At 1027. The case the majority cites does not support that holding, because it deals with "invitees," not persons with a contractual interest in the property. Olsen, 663 N.E.2d 1194. Olsen claimed his rental of a room gave him a contractual interest in the hotel lobby where he was arrested for criminal trespass. We held Olsen was in the lobby as an invitee, pursuant to it being open to the public; "the fact that he had rented a room had no effect on his right to be in the lobby." Id. at 1196 n. 1. Unlike hotel lobbies, schools are not "open to the public." Accordingly, the state laws requiring Taylor to attend school either gave him a contractual right to be in the lobby at noon during a school day, or they did not.
The only evidence suggesting Taylor did not have a contractual interest in being at the school came when the prosecutor asked the police officer if Taylor paid rent to the school or had any contractual interest in the school of which the officer was aware. The officer replied, "Not that I know of." (Tr. at 9.) I agree the State need not "disprove every conceivable contractual interest" a defendant may have had in the property. Fleck, 508 N.E.2d at 541. However, it ought to have the burden to disprove the most obvious possible contractual interest, here, a student's contractual interest in being at school. The lack of a contractual interest in the property is, after all, "a material element the State must prove to convict a person of eriminal trespass." Id. at 540. I find in the officer's equivocal statement no "proof" of any fact, let alone proof beyond a reasonable doubt regarding a material element of the charged offense.
Schools presumably have internal procedures to deal with students who misbehave, and policies regarding where students may be and when.6 The State presented no testimony regarding whether the school has a policy pertaining to students' presence at school after their classes have ended for the day and whether students have been made aware of such policy. The State did not prove Taylor had no contractual interest in being at the school during its regular business hours, even though his classes had ended two hours earlier. As the State failed to prove that element of eriminal trespass, I would reverse.7

. Nevertheless, we held Woods' membership did not entitle her to make unreasonable noise and disrupt the club's facility. Therefore, given Woods' membership status, the appropriate charge would have been disorderly conduct and not criminal trespass. Woods, 703 N.E.2d at 1118.

. The majority asserts Woods is not instructive because Wood's contract gave her unlimited access to the health club facilities, while "no evidence was presented that Taylor had a contract that provided him with full access to the school's property for unlimited hours." At -- n. 3.
That seems to place a burden on Taylor to produce evidence regarding the contract he had in the school property, when Indiana law clearly places the burden on the State to prove Taylor did not have a contractual interest in the property.
Second, this case is not about whether a student has unlimited access to school facilities at unlimited hours. It is about whether a student has a contractual interest sufficient to remain in a school lobby during regular business hours and, wait for the public bus, which may or may not run on schedule.
Finally, Woods is instructive for the holding I cite it for: a person with a contractual interest cannot become a trespasser by virtue of being asked to leave the premises. If Taylor had a contractual interest, it was not extinguished by the officer telling him to leave.

. The State claims Officer McClendon was "employed for the sole purpose of ensuring that students [do] not linger after classes conclude." (Appellee's Br. at 5.) The State makes this assertion without citation to the record, and I find no such evidence in the record before us. I hope, for the safety of IPS students and faculty, officers are employed for more than that "sole purpose," and are also concerned about whether students bring guns and drugs to the school premises and whether strangers enter the school to endanger the staff, faculty, or students.

. I am concerned that a criminal trespass prosecution was the first course of action against a student who remained on school property after his classes had ended. The record does not reveal why Taylor was arrested, rather than taken to the principal's office to clarify the situation. I appreciate the safety concerns facing our schools and that the educational process is hindered if classes are interrupted unnecessarily. Nevertheless, Taylor was not a stranger on the premises. As a policy matter, we should be reluctant to send our youth the message that if they remain at school after their classes have ended they will *1031be arrested and subjected to criminal prosecution. Presumably, if they are not causing trouble at school, we would prefer they remain there rather than roam airalessly on the streets.