Court Opinion

ID: 9709228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:43:15.348725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:47.122127
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting and concurring.
I would affirm appellant's conviction for resisting law enforcement, but reverse the conviction for robbery. The evidence presented at the trial supporting the giving of Final Instruction No. 9 was the conduct of appellant in attempting to fight off Officer Slivko inside the Ridge Bar three days after the robbery, after Slivko asked appellant to step outside to talk. There was no evidence that appellant attempted to avoid arrest or capture after robbing the store that would support giving the instruction. Slivko knew that there was a warrant for appellant's arrest for the robbery; however, Slivko said nothing about the warrant for robbery until after appellant started wrestling to get out of his grasp, while moving toward the door of the bar. Instruction No. 9 stated that "[elvidence of actions calculated to avoid arrest" was evidence of a consciousness of guilt. In my opinion, the natural and most probable reading of the instruction is that it encouraged the jury to consider appellant's violent resist ance to capture in the Ridge Bar as evidence of his consciousness of guilt of the robbery. For this purpose, the evidence *831was simply irrelevant and did not support the instruction.
In Dalton v. State (1987), Ind., 504 N.E.2d 568, cited in the majority opinion, the defendant sped away in his car from the scene of his crime to avoid arrest by officers whom he had attacked. There the evidence was clearly relevant. Here, by contrast, the evidence of appellant's resistance to arrest did not tend to connect him to the previous robbery. There was no hot pursuit from a crime seene. Cf. Wilson v. State (1983), Ind., 455 N.E.2d 1120; Short v. State (1982), Ind., 443 N.E.2d 298. Slivko did not mention the warrant for arrest for robbery until after appellant's resistance commenced. The evidence of appellant's conduct at the robbery seene was that he simply left after committing the crime. Under the circumstances, appellant's resistance to capture did not reveal a consciousness of guilt of the previous robbery.