Court Opinion

ID: 9735420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:14:46.502992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:58.426422
License: Public Domain

STATON, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. The trial court has asked for our help regarding its denial of a motion to suppress. It has asked us to determine:
"Whether the roadblock at issue in the case at Bar complied with holding of State v. Garcia (1986), Ind., 500 N.E.2d 158."
The Majority has denied any assistance to the trial court in this matter because of form. The trial court has attempted to comply with Ind. Appellate Rule 4(B)(6). Because the form is a denial of a motion to suppress and not an interlocutory order or "decision" under the statute, the Majority denied the petition for an interlocutory appeal. Too, the Majority, interpreting the Rule very narrowly, maintains that the Rule does not provide for "... the certification of questions to this Court by a state trial court." +I disagree. Regardless of the form-ruling on a motion to suppress or an order of the court-it is implicit that this Court has the discretion to accept such appeals. AR. 4(B)(6) is a permissive Rule.1
*187The Majority points to A.R. 15(0) as the only provision under our appellate procedure which would permit questions of law to be reviewed. This Rule became effective July 2, 1991. AR. 4(B)(6) became effective January 1, 1972 or some twenty years earlier. Recent changes in the appellate rules indicate a desire to shed the old procedural barriers which prolonged the disposition of cases and burdened the judicial system. Under A.R. 15(0), it is possible for a federal trial court in Indiana to submit a question of law to our Indiana Supreme Court. See Stump v. Commercial Union (1992), Ind., 601 N.E.2d 327. It appears highly unlikely that the shackles shorn from the federal trial courts would be left in place on the Indiana trial courts.
The purpose and spirit of A.R. 4(B)(6) are demeaned by the narrow interpretation of the Majority. Here, a trial may be avoided altogether or at the very least shortened by our accepting this interlocutory appeal. To limit the acceptance of an interlocutory appeal on the sole ground that it is not in the form of an interlocutory order clearly limits the Rule. It cripples the intended usefulness of the Rule. It shackles the judicial system unnecessarily. I would grant the petition.

. "The supreme court amended the appellate rules, effective January 1, 1992, to provide that in permissive interlocutory appeals under Ind. Appellate Rule 4(B)(6) a praecipe shall be filed *187no later than ten days after the court of appeals grants the petition for interlocutory appeal." George T. Patton, Jr., Recent Developments in Indiana Appellate Procedure: Reforming the Procedural Path to the Indiana Supreme Court, 25 Ind.L.Rev. 1105, 1107 (1992); also for other changes in appellate procedure and particularly AP. 15(0) see the aforementioned article at 1109.