Eric Rasnick v. State of Indiana

2 N.E.3d 17, 2013 WL 7088245, 2013 Ind. App. LEXIS 643
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 20, 2013
Docket39A01-1211-CR-526
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 2 N.E.3d 17 (Eric Rasnick v. State of Indiana) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eric Rasnick v. State of Indiana, 2 N.E.3d 17, 2013 WL 7088245, 2013 Ind. App. LEXIS 643 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

MATHIAS, Judge.

Eric Rasnick ("Rasnick") was convicted in Jefferson Circuit Court of Class B felony burglary and Class D felony theft and sentenced to the Department of Correction for an aggregate sentence of thirty-six years. Rasnick raises four issues on this appeal, 1 which we restate as follows:

I. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of the "show-up" identification of Rasnick and items seized during the search based on that identification;
II. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in admitting GPS evidence against Rasnick;
Whether the evidence is sufficient to support Rasnick's conviction for burglary; and IIL.
IV. Whether Rasnieck's sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender.

Affirmed.

Facts and Procedural History

On September 25, 2011, Rasnick spent the afternoon at a Madison, Indiana winery, sampling wine with Tamara Campbell ("Campbell"), Jessica Starks ("Starks"), and Brandon Eugene Stidham ("Stid-ham"). At the time, Rasnick was on parole for a previous burglary conviction and was being monitored by Seott County Community Corrections via a GPS track ing bracelet on his ankle.

The four individuals left the winery in Campbell's red, four-door 1996 Chevrolet Corsica, license plate number NN3776, with Rasnick driving. Rasnick drove the group to Hanover College, where he had previously worked laying carpet. Rasnick parked the car near the college's Wiley Halil dormitory and both Rasnick and Campbell went inside the dormitory. Starks and Stidham remained in the car.

*21 Onee inside, Rasnick and Campbell went to the basement of the dormitory and entered room number 83. There, they dumped several books from a blue backpack that they found in the room, took a laptop computer and three cameras, and left the room.

At the time of the burglary, room 33 was occupied by Hanover students Sarah La-throp ("Lathrop") and Christiana Haynes ("Haynes"). Lathrop and Haynes had attended a local festival during the afternoon of September 25 and returned to the dorm between 5:00 and 5:80 p.m. Haynes stopped on the dormitory's first floor to talk to her resident assistant and Lathrop proceeded alone to the basement of the dormitory.

As Lathrop walked through the basement's lobby toward the room she shared with Haynes, she passed a male and female, neither of whom she recognized as Hanover students, but whom she later identified as Rasnick and Campbell. Ras-nick and Campbell were walking towards Lathrop from the general direction of room 33. Rasnick was carrying a black trash bag,. When Rasnick and Campbell passed Lathrop in the lobby, all three of them paused and looked at one another for a moment, and Lathrop made eye contact with both Rasnick and Campbell. Rasnick and Campbell then turned and hurried across the lobby and up the stairs leading out of the basement. Lathrop watched Rasnick and Campbell leave and noticed a black tattoo on the back of Rasnick's right calf as he climbed the stairs.

Rasnick and Campbell also passed by Haynes in a first floor hallway of the dorm as she waited outside her resident assistant's room. Haynes thought Rasnick and Campbell looked suspicious, so she watched them closely as they left the building. Haynes later identified Campbell as the person who was carrying the black trash bag. Like Lathrop, Haynes noticed the large black tattoo on the back of Rasnick's calf.

In the meantime, Lathrop had returned to her dorm room and noticed that the door was open. Once inside the room, she looked around and saw that the books that had been in her backpack had been dumped on the floor and that Haynes's laptop was missing from her desk. Haynes entered the room a moment later, as Lathrop was still looking around. La-throp told Haynes that their "stuff was gone" and "asked where those two people went." Tr. p. 127. Haynes told Lathrop that she had seen Rasnick and Campbell walk out through the north entrance to the dormitory. The two girls then ran upstairs and outside just in time to see Ras-nick, Campbell, and two others drive away in Campbell's car. Lathrop chased after the car and came within ten feet of it. As the car sped off, Lathrop noted the last four digits on the car's license plate: 3776.

Lathrop and Haynes then contacted campus security, and campus security called the Hanover police. Lathrop and Haynes reported to the responding officers that their dorm room had been burglarized and gave the officers a description of Ras-nick, Campbell, and the car in which the two fled. They also described the car's partial license plate number and the items stolen from their room.

The Hanover police broadcast the description provided by the victims. A few minutes later, Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Shane Gibson spotted a car matching that description traveling along Highway 356. He followed the car over the county line into Scott County, where the car pulled into the driveway of a residence. Rasnick, Campbell, Stark, and Stidham exited the car and raised the car's hood. Deputy Gibson approached the car from the passenger side and noticed a blue *22 backpack on the floorboard of the front passenger side. He called for backup and ordered the four occupants to sit behind the car.

Police then radioed campus security to inform Lathrop and Haynes that a vehicle matching the description they had provided had been stopped and asked the two victims to come to the location where the car was stopped to try to make an identification. The police did not describe the occupants of the car or reveal the presence of the blue backpack in the car.

Hanover Police Sergeant Ian Pearson drove Lathrop and Haynes to the residence where the car was stopped. As Pearson's cruiser approached the scene, both victims spontaneously identified Campbell as the woman they had seen inside the dormitory. After exiting Pearson's car, both victims also quickly identified Rasnick.

Police then searched Campbell's car, apparently pursuant to her consent to do so. Inside, they found the blue backpack belonging to Lathrop. Inside the backpack, they discovered Haynes's laptop and one of Haynes's missing cameras. After searching the nearby roadside, police found another of Haynes's cameras, this one with a broken lens and serious water damage. A third camera was never recovered.

On September 26, 2011, Rasnick was charged with Class B felony burglary, Class D felony theft, and Class A misdemeanor driving while license suspended. The State also alleged that Rasnick was an habitual offender.

On September 18, 2012, Rasnick filed a motion to suppress. In the motion, Ras-nick claimed that the victims' "show- up" identification of Rasnick was impermissibly suggestive and that evidence seized pursuant to the subsequent search of the vehicle should be suppressed as the result of the improper identification. On September 21, 2012, Rasnick filed a motion in limine seeking suppression of any evidence that revealed that he was on a Seott County Community Corrections GPS monitoring system at the time of the burglary.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2 N.E.3d 17, 2013 WL 7088245, 2013 Ind. App. LEXIS 643, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eric-rasnick-v-state-of-indiana-indctapp-2013.