Bacher v. State

722 N.E.2d 799, 2000 Ind. LEXIS 3, 2000 WL 35807
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 6, 2000
Docket48S00-9804-CR-237
StatusPublished
Cited by61 cases

This text of 722 N.E.2d 799 (Bacher v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bacher v. State, 722 N.E.2d 799, 2000 Ind. LEXIS 3, 2000 WL 35807 (Ind. 2000).

Opinions

DICKSON, Justice

In this direct appeal, the defendant-appellant, John R. Bacher, challenges his sixty-year sentence for the murder1 of his wife, Janet Odie (Bacher).

After the jury found the defendant guilty of murder, the judge imposed a sentence of sixty years. On direct appeal, this Court affirmed the trial court’s conviction but remanded the case to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing because the trial court’s sentencing statement contained questionable aggravating circumstances and failed to discuss a proffered mitigating circumstance. Bacher v. [801]*801State, 686 N.E.2d 791, 801-02 (Ind.1997). The trial court conducted a resentencing hearing, finding “sufficient aggravating circumstances to enhance the sentence” and no mitigating circumstances, Record at 79, and reimposed a sentence of sixty years.2 In this direct appeal, we understand the defendant to present two claims regarding his sentence: (1) that it is manifestly unreasonable; and (2) that the trial court abused its discretion.

The defendant first contends that the maximum sentence of sixty years is manifestly unreasonable. Upon appellate review, a sentence may be revised if found to be manifestly unreasonable “in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender.” Ind. Appellate Rule 17(B). Because this identical claim, involving the same offender, offense, and sentence, was presented and rejected in the defendant’s first appeal, Bacher, 686 N.E.2d at 801, we decline to reconsider it here.

Second, the defendant claims that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to follow this Court’s directions when it once again imposed the maximum sentence of sixty years.3 The “improper” aggravating circumstances that the defendant identifies relate to the impact of the murder upon the victim’s family: despair and grief suffered by the victim’s family, financial obligations placed on the victim’s family, the defendant’s abuse, deceit, and breach of the trust between the victim and her mother, the defendant’s actions and misrepresentations about his financial affairs and past employment endeavors so that the defendant could cultivate a relationship with the victim, the defendant’s breach of the trust in his marital relationship, and the defendant’s lack of remorse.

Determining the appropriate sentence is within the trial court’s discretion, and the trial court will be reversed only upon a showing of manifest abuse of discretion. Archer v. State, 689 N.E.2d 678, 683 (Ind.1997); Carter v. State, 686 N.E.2d 1254, 1263 (Ind.1997). The trial court has within its discretion the ability to determine whether the presumptive sentence for a crime will be increased or decreased because of aggravating or mitigating circumstances. Archer, 689 N.E.2d at 683. The weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors is also within the trial court’s discretion. Carter, 686 N.E.2d at 1263. When a trial court enhances a presumptive sentence, it must state its reasons for doing so, identifying all significant aggravating and mitigating factors; stating the facts and reasons that lead the court to find the existence of each such circumstance; and demonstrating that the court has evaluated and balanced the aggravating and mitigating factors in determining the sentence. Crawley v. State, 677 N.E.2d 520, 521-22 (Ind.1997); Morgan v. State, 675 N.E.2d 1067, 1073 (Ind. 1996). The trial court must state these reasons in order to guard against arbitrary sentences and to provide an adequate basis for appellate review. Morgan, 675 N.E.2d at 1074.

In enhancing the presumptive sentence by twenty years, the sentencing court, in its sentencing order, identified several aggravating circumstances: the emotional and financial impact of the mur[802]*802der upon the victim’s family, the defendant’s abuse of his relationship with the victim’s mother to establish a relationship with the victim, the defendant’s character,4 the defendant’s violation of the trust in his relationship with the victim,5 and the defendant’s lack of remorse.6

Regarding a sentencing court’s use of impact upon the victim’s family as an aggravating circumstance, our earlier decision in this case instructed:

[U]nder normal circumstances the impact upon family is not an aggravating circumstance for purposes of sentencing. The impact on others may qualify as an aggravator in certain cases but “the defendant’s actions must have had an impact on ... ‘other persons’ of a destructive nature that is not normally associated with the commission of the offense in question and this impact must be foreseeable to the defendant.”
We appreciate the terrible loss of a loved one. But because such impact on family members accompanies almost every murder, we believe it is encompassed within the range of impact which the presumptive sentence is designed to punish. In the present case, nothing in the trial court’s statement at sentencing suggests that the impact on the victim’s children and parents is of the type so distinct so as to rise to the level of an aggravating circumstance.

Bacher, 686 N.E.2d at 801 (citations omitted).

In the sentencing hearing conducted upon remand, the trial court acknowledged our instruction:

The Supreme Court noted that in the present case nothing in the trial court statement at sentencing should suggest the impact of the victim’s children and parents is of the type so distinct as to rise to the level of an aggravating cir[803]*803cumstance. This sentencing hearing here today, once again the daughter and mother of the victim had testified and the daughter, through a letter from her brother, also indicates continuing despair and grief on the part of the family. This murder had affected this family far beyond the sentencing, the first ... sentencing in this case. The Court also noted that in the pre-sentence report that there was certain financial obligations that were placed upon the family because of the demise of the victim in this case that had to be fulfilled by members of the family because of the death. And this has also created not only an emotional impact on the family, but a financial burden. So, [the sentencing court] finds that in this particular case that [the sentencing] Court is justified in finding that the impact on the family members is an aggravated circumstance ....

Record at 108-09. The sentencing court also found significant the way in which “the defendant made contact with the family” and “used his friendship with the mother to develop a friendship with the victim.” Record at 109. In its ruling, the court stated that the defendant “abused his relationship with the victim’s mother to establish a relationship with the victim, which is also deceitful and dishonest, which ... placed a greater burden upon the mother in this case because she feels as though she’s also victimized not only by a loss of a daughter, but by her friendship and trust and reliability in this case.” Record 109-10.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

McConney J. George v. State of Indiana
Indiana Court of Appeals, 2020
Shawn Towell v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)
Indiana Court of Appeals, 2016
Keith Rich v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)
Indiana Court of Appeals, 2015
Ashonta Kenya Jackson v. State of Indiana
33 N.E.3d 1173 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2015)
Jose Guzman v. State of Indiana
985 N.E.2d 1125 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2013)
Curtis E. Jones v. State of Indiana
Indiana Court of Appeals, 2012
Sargent v. State
875 N.E.2d 762 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2007)
Anthony Stockelman v. State of Indiana
868 N.E.2d 416 (Indiana Supreme Court, 2007)
Rowe v. State
867 N.E.2d 262 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2007)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
722 N.E.2d 799, 2000 Ind. LEXIS 3, 2000 WL 35807, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bacher-v-state-ind-2000.