Court Opinion

ID: 9530796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:03:40.807867+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:15.124420
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring
With one exception, I fully concur in the affirmance of the conviction and in the treatment of the issues by the majority opinion. That exception concerns the majority’s conclusion that the General Assembly made a conscious policy decision in I.C. 20-12-3.5-2 to exempt university police from the training requirements of I.C. 5-2-1-9(d). Rather, I believe the failure to require such training of university police officers was a legislative oversight.
Minimum training requirements for municipal, county and state law enforcement officers were introduced into the law by Acts 1967, ch. 209, sec. 9. Statutory provisions for university police came about by virtue of Acts 1971, P.L. 329, sec. 1. Given the fact that such university police were vested with full powers of arrest, it seems unlikely that the legislature contemplated that the persons exercising such striking authority would do so with little or no training.
For this reason, I write separately not only to agree with the majority that we are not privileged to “rewrite a statute in order to render it consistent with our view of sound public policy” but also to strongly and explicitly encourage the General Assembly to address this omission at the earliest legislative opportunity. Op. at 284 (quoting Robinson v. Monroe County (1996) Ind.App., 663 N.E.2d 196, 198).