Court Opinion

ID: 9734870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:49:05.057375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:51.838559
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
In prosecuting this post-conviction petition, appellants introduced the record of their original trial. It establishes that defense counsel for appellants did not conduct voir dire examination of prospective jurors, made no statements to the jury, made no objections to the introduction of exhibits offered by the State, cross-examined no witnesses, tendered no instructions, and offered no objections to any instructions. No defense witnesses were presented. In sum, *380counsel chose not to function in defense at the trial. Counsel believed that they would forfeit the right to raise on appeal any error of the trial court in reassuming jurisdiction in the case after having granted their motion for change of venue, in the event they participated to any degree in the trial of the case.
It is the law in Indiana that an erroneous denial of a motion for change of venue is appealable, and full participation in the trial is not a waiver of the right to raise such error after trial on appeal of an adverse judgment. Millican v. State, (1973) 157 Ind. App. 363, 300 N.E.2d 359; Hanrahan v. State, (1968) 251 Ind. 325, 241 N.E.2d 143; State v. Laxton et al., (1961) 242 Ind. 331, 178 N.E.2d 901; Beck v. State, (1961) 241 Ind. 231, 171 N.E.2d 696; State ex rel. Williams Coal Co. v. Duncan, Judge, (1936) 211 Ind. 203, 6 N.E.2d 342; Barber v. State, (1925) 197 Ind. 88, 149 N.E. 896; Woodsmall v. State, (1913) 181 Ind. 613, 105 N.E. 155. In case after case, in an unbroken chain, this Court on appeal has considered the correctness of trial court rulings upon pre-trial motions for change of venue. Among these cases, this Court has reversed judgments taken after extended trial, because it has determined that the trial court committed error in denying a motion for change of venue. The act of reassuming jurisdiction after granting a change of venue and the act of denying a motion for change of venue partake of the same qualities and are logically to be reviewed on the same basis by this Court on appeal. It is, of course, true that this Court does take jurisdiction of original actions in which it is claimed that a motion for change of venue from the judge has been erroneously denied or that a judge has assumed judicial authority which he does not have. However, this remedy by way of mandate and prohibition in this Court is not exclusive and has never been so held.
I can therefore only conclude that the dilemma upon which trial counsel considered themselves impaled in this case was a mere phantom. Their mistake, while only one, and possibly *381one which arose from a confusion caused by the existence of two judicial procedures for obtaining review of the same type of error, nevertheless, when properly viewed, not from the standpoint of courts who disdain being tricked or misled, or of counsel who may take offense at being labelled ineffective in the case, but from that of the person accused of crime, needing and choosing to claim that right to effective representation guaranteed by the Constitutions, served to leave appellants without counsel. I would therefore reverse the decision of the trial court.
Note. — Reported at 332 N.E.2d 94.