Court Opinion

ID: 9732271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:13:44.746253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:25.752380
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
In Evans v. State (1986), Ind., 497 N.E.2d 919, an eighteen-year-old, along with three others, killed a man by hitting him in the head with a concrete block in robbing him. The youth had been previously committed to the Indiana Boys' School for an incident involving a knife. He received an enhanced term of fifty years. Here, appellant was younger, and was functioning in school and socially as a twelve-year-old. He routinely played with children much younger. At school he did not converse with other students or the teachers and responded to questions in class with a single word. He killed impulsively in a frenzy and there is no empirical evidence that the victim was subjected to special or heightened forms of physical or psychological abuse not normally found in conjunction with these felonies. His juvenile court record showed a determination that he was beyond the control of his parents in 1983, and that he was taken into custody for stealing a cassette player from a neighboring apartment and for sodomy of a four-year-old in 1984. Appellant is undoubtedly dangerous when permitted to be around small children and his prior experiences with the law and the fact that he was much stronger than his victims are unquestionably entitled to aggravating weight. However to enhance this sentence to the maximum is manifestly unreasonable. Ind.R. App.Rev.Sen. 2(1). The nature of this offender and his offenses warrants no more than the standard sentence for both felo*1246nies, such sentences to be served concurrently.