Court Opinion

ID: 9715516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:07:23.907198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:35.419778
License: Public Domain

DARDEN, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority's conclusion that counsel's failure to request a continuance did not amount to ineffective assistance.
A review of our supreme court's recitation of the facts from Turner's direct appeal certainly supports his conviction for robbery as a class A felony under the prior robbery statute. See Turner v. State, 506 N.E.2d 827, 828 (Ind.1987), reh'g denied. However, we may not overlook the fact that the prosecuting attorney is the only entity who may file criminal charges against an accused; and, in this case-assuming a proper investigation was completed-the decision was made to charge Turner with robbery causing "bodily injury," as opposed to "serious bodily injury," as a class A felony pursuant to the prior statute.
Our legislature amended the robbery statute in February, 1984, effective September 1, 1984, to provide that an accused who commits robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, or if the robbery results in a "bodily injury" to the victim commits a class B felony rather than a class A felony. Furthermore, there appears to be no dispute, as noted by the majority, that the amended statute is truly ameliorative as applied to Turner, but only if his case could be tried or he could be sentenced after the effective date of the amended statute.
In my opinion, an amended statute of this magnitude should place any reasonable defense attorney on notice that a delay in his client's case until after the ameliorative statutory provision takes effect would inure to the benefit of the client. The legislature could easily have foreclosed this loophole by providing that the amended statute would only apply to crimes committed after September 1, 1984. It did not and, therefore, we can presume that the legislature was aware of the ameliorative effect of the amended statute. Thus, Turner should have received the benefit of that statute.
Accordingly, based upon the peculiar facts and cireumstances surrounding this case, I do not believe Turner's counsel's failure to *1029request a continuance constituted effective assistance of counsel. Given the fact that lawyers are charged with the duty to zealously represent their client within the bounds of the law, Mims v. Commercial Credit Corp., Ind., 261 Ind. 591, 307 N.E.2d 867 (1974) (emphasis in original), and the fact the legislature was obviously aware of the ameliorative effect of the new robbery statute, a request for a continuance of Turner's trial or sentencing until after the statute's effective date would not have been a "false claim" as concluded by the majority. Rather, because a lawyer has the duty to at all times protect and preserve the rights of the client, Landau v. Bailey, 629 N.E.2d 264 (Ind.Ct.App.1994), I would consider a request for a continuance or delay under the civeumstances here to be prudent representation and the failure to request a continuance ineffective assistance of counsel.
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse Turner's conviction for robbery as a class A felony, and his accompanying forty year sentence, and remand for the entry of a judgment of conviction for robbery as a class B felony and resentencing as a class B felony.