Court Opinion

ID: 9505539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:06:15.276594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:34.382713
License: Public Domain

BOEHM, Justice,
concurring and concurring in result.
I concur in all parts of the majority opinion except Part I.C.l, in which the majority categorically prohibits use of the stun belt in Indiana courtrooms. I generally agree with the points the majority makes about the use of the belt, and I certainly agree that trial court findings are required before any form of courtroom restraint is to be used. However, trial courts are often faced with hard choices. It is not at all clear to me that the belt is a less desirable alternative to restraints that are plainly visible and convey to the jury the message that the defendant cannot be trusted to comport himself in a manner consistent with courtroom decorum. Indeed, I would think some defendants might, as did Wrinkles in this case, prefer the belt to a gag or more visible restraints. The majority is surely correct that any of these alternatives is to be used only where necessary and where supported by appropriate findings. But where some form of restraint is to be used, I would not categorically prohibit the belt in favor of others that may be even more hostile to a fair trial.
I concur in the majority’s view that Wrinkles has not shown ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to the use of the belt. Trial counsel here were faced with a very difficult guilt phase, to say the least. Conviction seems to me to have been virtually a foregone conclusion, with the penalty being the only realistic battleground for defense counsel. To decide not to take issue with the trial judge on this issue would seem to me to be well within the sort of judgment that lawyers are forced to make. Accordingly, I concur in the result reached by the majority.