Court Opinion

ID: 9717439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:03:30.883335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:53.205941
License: Public Domain

DICKSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Well before the commencement of trial, defense counsel filed a comprehensive motion in limine seeking the court to order the prosecutor to refrain, until a hearing could be held outside the presence of the jury, from mention of “[a]ny prior so-called ‘bad acts’ of the accused which might tend to show ‘depraved sexual instinct.’ ” Record at 39. The defendant’s motion sought reconsideration of the depraved sexual instinct rule and was supported by a detailed and thorough memorandum referring the trial court to various articles and treatises by social scientists, pursuant to the invitation in Hogg v. State (1991), Ind., 581 N.E.2d 430 (Dickson, J., concurring in the denial of transfer). Counsel also expressly called the trial court’s attention to Lannan v. State (1992), Ind., 600 N.E.2d 1334, which was then pending transfer to this Court and scheduled for oral argument:
The Indiana Supreme Court has invited revisitation of the “depraved sexual instinct exception.” [It is] scheduled to hear oral argument on the exception, directed toward whether the exception is based upon valid or invalid presumptions of human behavior. (See Lannan v. State, 71A03-9106-CR-163, scheduled for oral argument June 24, 1992.)
Record at 41. Consistent with then-existing precedent, however, the defendant’s motion in limine was denied.
At trial, when the prosecutor presented the evidence at issue, the defendant’s trial counsel failed to contemporaneously reassert her objection previously presented in limine. It is this oversight which the majority today finds determinative, providing *929as its rationale that the trial court must be given an opportunity “to consider the evidence in the context in which it is offered” and “to make a final determination on admissibility.”
Almost immediately realizing her omission, counsel at the commencement of the sentencing hearing filed a “Motion to Reopen Record for Correction” for the purpose of making the objection and obtaining a ruling. Record at 139-40. The trial court hearing on this motion included the following colloquy:
Court: I’ll just state right off that I’d like to figure out some way to allow, if Ur. Clausen intends to appeal, to allow this issue to be appealed. It seems to me it would be silly to not allow it to be appealed and then somehow an appeal on effectiveness of counsel, which, if the issue in his favor would be granted, then we’d be back anyway.
[Prosecutor]: My only objection to the motion is that it contains language of ineffective assistance and I think Ms. Wagoner is very effective counsel and I can see the point we talked at length in chambers on her motion and I think she knew the Court’s position and I have no objection to the Court creating the record in such a fashion that was apparent to both counsel that the testimony would be allowed and that she had filed appropriate motions to attempt to exclude.
Court: I think that that’s the thrust of the motion.
[Prosecutor]: Yes
Court: If she’d just let the record show that the motion was made at trial also and overruled.
[Prosecutor]: Yes. I have no objection to that.
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Court: Well, I haven’t researched it obviously but I sure don’t know of a way to create a record, but at the same time, I’m just sure that [an] [a]ppellate [c]ourt would agree with my reasoning that it’s silly not to allow that issue to be addressed in one appeal rather than potentially two.
[Defense Counsel]: Right. I think it’s safe to say that had an objection been made, your ruling would have been consistent with the ruling on the issue in limine.
Court: Correct.
Record at 308-10 (emphasis added). Thus, defense counsel, with the complete agreement of the trial court and the prosecutor, unequivocally established in the Record that the trial judge, in the context of the evidence actually presented at trial, would have denied her objection.
Likewise, on appeal, the State did not present any claim of waiver for failure to make a contemporaneous objection. Rather, it proceeded to address on the merits the appropriateness of the admission of this evidence under Lannan v. State and Pirnat v. State (1993), Ind., 607 N.E.2d 973.
In summary, trial counsel in limine superbly presented and supported her argument concerning the depraved sexual instinct issue in anticipation of a possible favorable ruling by this Court in Lannan, which did thereafter occur.1 Defense counsel presented verification by the trial judge that, if presented with the objection at trial, it would have been denied just as the court had denied the motion in limine. The trial prosecutor did not object but consented to the preservation of the issue for appeal, and the State asserted neither waiver nor procedural default on appeal.
We should require no more.
This Court has a strong and proud history of preferring to decide cases on substantive merit rather than useless procedural formalities. For example, Indiana Trial Rule 8(F) states: “All pleadings shall be so construed as to do substantial justice, lead to disposition on the merits, and avoid liti*930gation of procedural points.” Our precedents instruct that we look to substance and not form, Mishawaka, St. Joseph Loan & Trust Co. v. Neu (1935), 209 Ind. 433, 450, 196 N.E. 85, 92, and that we look beneath rigid rules to find substantial justice and prevent strict legal rules from working injustice. Wabash Valley Coach Co. v. Turner (1943), 221 Ind. 52, 65, 46 N.E.2d 212, 217, cert. denied (1943), 319 U.S. 754, 63 S.Ct. 1167, 87 L.Ed. 1707. The law does not require a party to do a useless act. City of Evansville v. Maddox (1939), 217 Ind. 39, 46, 25 N.E.2d 321, 323-24.
With today’s decision, the majority applies an arbitrary and superficial technicality which fails to serve a purpose in this case. The reasons that support our requirement for contemporaneous objection were fully satisfied in the Record. It is agreed by both parties and the trial court that a contemporaneous reassertion of the objection made in limine would have been overruled. To apply the contemporaneous objection rule is to impose a purposeless procedural formality based on a fictitious rationale under the circumstances of this case. It is an offense to our obligation to justly decide cases on their merits.

. Lannan was decided October 16, 1992, two and one-half months after the defendant was sentenced in the present case.