Court Opinion

ID: 9737633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:31:00.22658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:00.349353
License: Public Domain

SHIELDS, Judge,
concurring.
Although I agree that Vanness’s conviction for interference with custody should be affirmed, I disagree with the majority opinion in two respects.
In my opinion, the trial court erroneously admitted the writ of attachment into evidence. A prior civil judgment is admissible as proof of the judgment’s existence and of the legal consequences that could result from that fact. Indiana State Highway Commission v. Rickert (1981), Ind., 425 N.E.2d 620, 622-23. However, a judgment cannot be offered as proof of some fact upon which the judgment was founded, because the judgment is not binding upon anyone except parties thereto. Lasher v. Gerlach (1939), 107 Ind.App. 572, 580, 23 N.E.2d 296, 299. Thus, the trial court improperly admitted the writ of attachment to *786demonstrate that Vanness left the jurisdiction in violation of the custody order. However, in view of the overwhelming evidence against Vanness, the error is harmless.
I also disagree with the implication in the majority opinion that Vanness’s conviction would be sustainable if the custody order had not specifically imposed geographical limitations regarding visitation. As this court stated in Cook v. State (1989), Ind. App., 547 N.E.2d 1118, trans, denied:
[I]n the absence of specific restrictions in the custodial order, a custodial or noncustodial parent who removes the child from the state either with bad intent or, perhaps, with no intent whatsoever to violate the terms of the order, does not violate the letter of the law.... We find that the statute means what it says, that the removal by the parent must violate a specific provision of the custody order.
Cook, 547 N.E.2d at 1123. Thus, had the present order not imposed specific geographical limitations, it would have had to state that Elizabeth could not be removed from the State for the fact finder to have found that Vanness violated the custody order within the meaning of IC § 35-42-3-4.