Goldie Crews v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)

• Court: Indiana Court of Appeals
• Decided: November 6, 2019
• Docket: 19A-CR-273
• Status: Published

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), FILED this Memorandum Decision shall not be Nov 06 2019, 9:19 am regarded as precedent or cited before any CLERK court except for the purpose of establishing Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals the defense of res judicata, collateral and Tax Court

estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Matthew J. McGovern Curtis T. Hill, Jr. Anderson, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana Caryn N. Szyper Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Goldie Crews, November 6, 2019 Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No. 19A-CR-273 v. Interlocutory Appeal from the Crawford Circuit Court State of Indiana, The Hon. Sabrina R. Bell, Judge Appellee-Plaintiff. Trial Court Cause No. 13C01-1804-F6-23

Bradford, Judge.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 19A-CR-273 | November 6, 2019 Page 1 of 4 Case Summary [1] Goldie Crews appeals from the trial court’s denial of her motion to dismiss the

charge of Level 6 felony battery against a public-safety official filed against her.

Crews contends that dismissal is warranted because the State failed to rebut the

evidence supporting her affirmative defense. Because a pre-trial motion to

dismiss is not the proper vehicle for her claim, we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History [2] On March 13, 2018, police officers were attempting to arrest Crews’s son Nick

at her Crawford County residence when some sort of physical altercation

occurred between Crews and one of the officers. On April 2, 2018, the State

charged Crews with Level 6 felony battery against a public-safety official. On

July 9, 2018, Crews moved to suppress evidence. On November 29, 2018, the

trial court conducted a hearing on Crews’s motion to suppress, at which Crews

indicated that the trial court could treat her motion as either a motion to

suppress or a motion to dismiss. On January 2, 2019, the trial court denied

Crews’s motion to suppress and/or dismiss. The trial court certified, and we

accepted jurisdiction of, Crews’s interlocutory appeal.

Discussion and Decision [3] Crews contends that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to dismiss

the charge of Level 6 felony battery against a public-safety official. Crews

claims only that the charge should have been dismissed because the record

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 19A-CR-273 | November 6, 2019 Page 2 of 4 contains no evidence to rebut her affirmative defense that she was resisting an

illegal entry into her home by law enforcement.

[4] We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to dismiss a charging information

for an abuse of discretion, which only occurs if a trial court’s decision is clearly

against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances. An-Hung Yao v. State,

975 N.E.2d 1273, 1276 (Ind. 2012). Pursuant to Indiana Code Section 35-34-1-

4(a), a trial court may dismiss a charging information upon any of the following

grounds:

(1) The indictment or information, or any count thereof, is defective under section 6 of this chapter. (2) Misjoinder of offenses or parties defendant, or duplicity of allegation in counts. (3) The grand jury proceeding was defective. (4) The indictment or information does not state the offense with sufficient certainty. (5) The facts stated do not constitute an offense. (6) The defendant has immunity with respect to the offense charged. (7) The prosecution is barred by reason of a previous prosecution. (8) The prosecution is untimely brought. (9) The defendant has been denied the right to a speedy trial. (10) There exists some jurisdictional impediment to conviction of the defendant for the offense charged. (11) Any other ground that is a basis for dismissal as a matter of law. [5] We have little trouble concluding that the trial court correctly denied Crews’s

motion to dismiss. First, Crews did not file the mandatory written motion to

dismiss citing the particular grounds, requesting orally that her motion to

suppress also be treated as a motion to dismiss. See Ind. Code § 35-34-1-8 (“A

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 19A-CR-273 | November 6, 2019 Page 3 of 4 motion to dismiss an indictment or information under section 4 of this chapter

shall be in writing.”). At the very least, Crews’s oral motion to dismiss the

charging information was procedurally improper.

[6] More fundamentally, even if Crews had filed a proper motion to dismiss, it

would have been based on improper grounds. Crews’s argument that the State

failed to rebut her affirmative defense is an argument directed at the sufficiency

of the evidence admitted at a trial, and we have made it clear that “[a] hearing

on a motion to dismiss is not a trial of the defendant on the offense charged.”

State v. Y.M., 60 N.E.3d 1121, 1126 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), trans. denied.

“Whether an individual has a statutory defense to the charges in an information

goes beyond the issues that may be decided by a motion to dismiss and instead

is a matter to be decided at trial.” Ceaser v. State, 964 N.E.2d 911, 918–19 (Ind.

Ct. App. 2012), trans. denied. Because the question of whether the State has

sufficiently rebutted Crews’s affirmative defense is for trial, any claim of that

type is premature at this pre-trial stage of Crews’s case. Crews has failed to

establish that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her motion to

dismiss.

[7] We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Vaidik, C.J., and Riley, J., concur.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 19A-CR-273 | November 6, 2019 Page 4 of 4