Court Opinion

ID: 9721786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:09:20.773703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.681772
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
The prosecution bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt in an habitual offender phase of a trial that the defendant "accumulated two prior unrelated felony convictions", Ind.Code § 85-50-2-8(a). Two convictions are "unrelated" where there is no connection between their res gestae. Erickson v. State, (1982) Ind., 488 N.E.2d 269. It is furthermore apparent from subsections (a) and (b) that the two prior convictions relied upon by the prosecution must not only be unrelated to the crime upon which the defendant has just stood trial and been found guilty, but must themselves be unrelated. According to the evidence relied upon by the majority, we only know that the prior convictions were for theft and burglary and occurred twenty months apart. To me the probative value of this lone evidence is insufficient to warrant a reasonable trier of fact in inferring their unrelated character beyond a reasonable doubt. There is nothing in the nature of the two substantive offenses and the fact that the trial and conviction of the two were separated in time by twenty months that warrants the necessary inference of unrelatedness. I would reverse the finding on habitual offender and remand for resen-tencing.