Court Opinion

ID: 9711192
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:26:11.522853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:02.737479
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
The majority treats two separate claims presented by appellant as though they were one issue. On one of those claims, Lamphier is entitled to relief. The other has been waived.
Appellant claims that the statute on neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury does not cover neglect resulting in death. Ind.Code § 35-46-1-4(a) (Burns 1985 Repl). There was a time when the legislature defined “serious bodily injury” as any injury which created a substantial risk of death or which caused death, serious permanent disfigurement, loss of a body member and so on. Ind. Code § 35-41-1-2 (Burns 1979 Repl.). The General Assembly subsequently repealed the former definition to make but a single change: removing reference to actions which result in death. 1983 Ind.Acts, P.L. 311, §§ 26, 49; Ind.Code § 35-41-1-25 (Burns 1985 Repl.).
The import of this legislative revision for Lamphier’s case is plain: neglect statutes are not intended to cover situations in which the victim dies. Those crimes are instead covered by the sections of the Code on homicide. Accordingly, I would find for Lamphier by reversing his conviction for neglect.
Even if Lamphier did not prevail on the issue of statutory construction, he would ultimately prevail on his double jeopardy claim. The majority treats this claim as though it were the same as the statutory construction issue and rejects it, asserting that the facts in this case are nearly identical to those in Bean v. State (1984), Ind., 460 N.E.2d 936.
While it is true that both cases tell a story of months of neglect ended by a blow causing death, the information which brought appellant Lamphier to trial reveals that he was not being tried for months of neglect. It charged that he had placed a dependent in a situation that endangered his life or health, with resulting serious bodily injury, “on or about the 13th day of September, 1986.” It was the same date the prosecution alleged Lamphier had committed murder. Thus the allegation places Lamphier’s case squarely within the bounds of Smith v. State (1980), Ind.App., 408 N.E.2d 614, the very case which this Court sought to distinguish in order to uphold the conviction in Bean. It cannot be right to affirm both Bean and this conviction, absent some procedural default. As Justice Potter Stewart said about antitrust precedent, “The sole consistency that I can find is that in litigation under § 7, the Government always wins.” United States v. Von’s Grocery Co., 384 U.S. 270, 301, 86 S.Ct. 1478, 1495, 16 L.Ed.2d 555, 575 (1966).
I agree with the Attorney General that Lamphier has waived the double jeopardy question by failing to raise it in his motion to correct error. Accordingly, I join in the decision to affirm the conviction for involuntary manslaughter.
DeBRULER, J., concurs.