Court Opinion

ID: 9723852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:36:15.762782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:52.807185
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I agree that the cause must be remanded for correction of the sentences. I also agree that the trial court did not err in denying Crank’s Petition for Post Conviction Relief.
*1361With regard to the merits of the Post Conviction Petition, the trial court was entitled to conclude from the evidence that Crank voluntarily absented himself from the jurisdiction knowing the date upon which he was to appear for trial. I therefore agree that it was not error to conduct the trial in his absence.
I do not, however, agree that, as stated by the majority, a defendant’s absence may be held to be voluntary merely because he was aware of the trial date. Neither am I able to agree that knowledge of trial date coupled with failure to appear constitutes knowing waiver of the right to appear at trial. I believe the law is correctly set forth in Bullock v. State (1983) Ind., 451 N.E.2d 646, wherein our Supreme Court held that knowledge of the trial date coupled with the defendant’s voluntary choice not to appear, constitutes an effective waiver. The crucial factor missing from the equation postulated by the majority here is the voluntary absence of the defendant. Because there may be numerous causes for a defendant’s absence, a defendant should not be foreclosed from making a belated attack upon his conviction if he can explain his absence. As held in Hudson v. State (1984) 4th Dist. Ind.App., 462 N.E.2d 1077; Walton v. State (1983) 4th Dist. Ind. App., 454 N.E.2d 443; and Gilbert v. State (1979) 2d Dist., 182 Ind.App. 286, 395 N.E.2d 429, a trial may proceed in the absence of a defendant if the circumstances are consistent with a voluntary failure to appear. When at his earliest opportunity the defendant appears, however, he must be permitted to demonstrate that his absence was not voluntary.
Here, as in Ramos v. State (1984) Ind., 467 N.E.2d 717, the evidence permitted a reasonable inference that the defendant fled the jurisdiction in order to avoid trial and sentencing. It was Crank’s burden at the Post Conviction hearing to prove to the contrary. He did not do so. I agree that post conviction relief was properly denied in this respect.
The majority also holds that because Crank was voluntarily absent from the jurisdiction during the entire period for perfection of a direct appeal, he has waived the right to assert matters which might have been presented in a timely direct appeal. I agree. I do not, however, agree that voluntary absence from the trial and from sentencing constitutes a waiver of the right of direct appeal. If defendant Crank had returned to this jurisdiction and had filed a timely motion to correct errors and perfected an appeal, I believe we could not properly hold that the right of appeal had been waived. Prater v. State (1984) Ind., 459 N.E.2d 39. Because, in the case before us, the defendant was voluntarily absent during the entire period for perfection of a timely appeal, waiver was properly applied.