Court Opinion

ID: 9744214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:56:55.297152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:47.539959
License: Public Domain

FRIEDLANDER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the trial court erred in revoking bail.
On the day that formal arson charges were filed against Perkins, an initial hearing was conducted at which Perkins’s counsel filed a motion requesting that Perkins be released on his own recognizance or, in the alternative, that bond be reduced. The prosecuting attorney conducted an ex parte communication with the judge that evening and asked the court to increase the amount of the bond to no bond. The court granted the request pending a hearing. At the June 2 hearing on Perkins’s motion for reduction of bond and the State’s motion for revocation of bond, the prosecutor introduced evidence indicating that, in addition to committing the aforementioned crimes, Perkins was at risk for committing suicide. Following the hearing the court revoked bond and ordered that Perkins be held without bail.
The parties acknowledge, and I agree, that the revocation of bail is governed by IC § 35-33-8-5. The question presented in this appeal concerns the restrictions that provision places upon a trial court’s power to revoke bond. Citing Ray v. State, 679 N.E.2d 1364, the majority concludes that, once bail has been set, it may be revoked only pursuant to subsection (d). Subsection (d) provides that if the State proves by clear and convincing evidence that, while admitted to bail, the defendant committed any one of five acts enumerated in subsection (d), the court is empowered to revoke bail. I cannot agree with the conclusion of both the Ray *295panel and the majority in the instant case that the acts listed in subsection (d) are the only grounds for which a trial court may revoke bail after it has initially been set.
It is true, as the Ray panel noted, that revocation of bail is authorized under subsection (d) when two conditions are met. First, the defendant must have committed one of the acts listed in the statute. Second, that act must have been committed “while admitted to bail.” Ray v. State, 679 N.E.2d at 1367 (emphasis in original). I disagree with the reasoning embraced by both the majority and the Ray panel to the extent it restricts a trial court’s power to revoke bail only to the provisions of subsection (d), thereby rendering the trial court “helpless”, see id. at 1368 (Staton, J., concurring in result), to reconsider the amount of bail unless the conditions of IC § 35-33-8-5(d)(l-5) have been met. I agree with the view expressed by Judge Sta-ton in his separate concurrence in Ray that, separate and distinct from subsection (d), “[ujnder the proper set of circumstances and where the evidence is clear and convincing, the trial court has the inherent power to revoke the bond of a defendant.” Id. at 1368 (Staton, J., concurring in result).
The statutory authority for this view is found in IC § 35-33-8-5(a), which permits the revocation of bail “upon a showing of good cause.” I believe that subsection (a) provides a basis for revoking bail that is independent of subsection (d). To view it otherwise, e.g., to view subsection (d) as a clarification of subsection (a), would render subsection (a) redundant. See State v. Money, 651 N.E.2d 344 (Ind.Ct.App.1995), trans. denied (statutes should be interpreted so as to avoid redundancy wherever possible). I interpret subsection (a) as affording broad discretion to revoke bail in situations other than when one of the enumerated acts is committed while a defendant is free on bail. The vesting of such discretion in trial courts is not only consistent with the plain meaning of IC § 35-33-8-5(a), but also comports with sound public policy. For instance, constrained by the provisions of subsection (d), a trial court would be powerless to revoke the bond of a defendant when, for instance, the court learns after setting bond that the defendant poses a greater risk of flight or a greater threat to society or self than was known at the time bond was set.
Therefore, I would hold that a court may revoke bail upon a showing of good cause under IC § 35-33-8-5(a), without regard to whether IC § 35-33-8-5(d) applies, and disagree with the majority and Ray v. State, 679 N.E.2d 1364 to the extent they hold otherwise. In view of my conclusion that subsection (a) authorizes revocation for “good cause”, I will briefly examine whether the reasons cited by the court for revoking Perkins’s bail constitute “good cause” within the meaning of IC § 35-33-8-5(a).
The majority quotes that part of the record in which the trial court set forth the reasons for revoking bail and I need not reproduce that explanation here. To summarize, the court revoked bail because: (1) Perkins exhibited signs of mental instability and was perhaps a suicide risk; (2) Perkins had admitted committing an unrelated, uncharged armed robbery; (3) Perkins had committed the aforementioned criminal acts while he was a law enforcement officer; and (4) Perkins posed a substantial risk of flight in view of the facts that he had asked a fellow police officer to help him resist or avoid the initial arrest, and the potential penalty for the crime with which he was charged was nonsuspendable.
I view the general “good cause” requirement in IC § 35-33-5-8(a) as vesting trial courts with wide discretion when considering requests to revoke bond and conclude that, in view of the risk of flight posed by Perkins, the risk to self and others, and Perkins’s mental instability, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting the State’s request to revoke bond. I would affirm the judgment.