Truax v. State
| Decision Date | 06 November 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 67A01-0505-CR-221.,67A01-0505-CR-221. |
| Citation | 856 N.E.2d 116 |
| Parties | Zacharia TRUAX, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
James R. Recker, Greencastle, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
Appellant-defendant Zacharia Truax appeals his convictions for four counts of Attempted Murder,1 a class A felony. Specifically, Truax contends that his convictions should be overturned because (1) he was tried in violation of Indiana Criminal Rule 4, (2) the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction or subject matter jurisdiction over his case, (3) the charging informations were defective, (4) the trial court committed reversible error when it allowed a written police report into evidence, and (5) the trial court erred in refusing to consider two proffered mitigating circumstances. Finding no error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
On the night of November 27, 2004, seventeen-year-old Truax became angry with his mother, Deidre Truax, at their home in Putnam County. Deidre left the house and called 911 for assistance. When Putnam County Sheriff's Department Deputies Alan Bullington and Rick Cooper and Reserve Deputies Shane Cox and Ronnie Campbell arrived at the house, Truax fired shots at them with a handgun while standing on the front porch. The deputies returned fire and crouched behind their police vehicles for protection. Units from the Greencastle Police Department and the Indiana State Police responded to the scene to help with the standoff. Truax engaged the police in an eight-hour standoff and occasionally fired gunshots at the deputies from inside the residence. During the standoff, Indiana State Police Trooper Charles Sorrells negotiated with Truax over the telephone and attempted to end the standoff in a peaceful manner. During these conversations, Truax expressed his desire to die while killing the police officers. The Indiana State Police Emergency Response Team arrived, and as a result of Trooper Sorrells's negotiations, Truax surrendered and was arrested without further incident.
On November 30, 2004, the State filed a delinquency petition against Truax that alleged delinquent acts that would constitute attempted murder, attempted criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon, and dangerous possession of a firearm if committed by an adult. On the same date, the State filed a motion to waive juvenile jurisdiction. After a waiver hearing, the juvenile court granted the State's motion and waived jurisdiction over the case on December 28, 2004.
On December 20, 2004, the State charged Truax with class A felony attempted murder, class C felony attempted criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon, and class A misdemeanor dangerous possession of a firearm. On the same date, Truax filed a motion for a speedy trial. On January 1, 2005, and February 11, 2005, the State amended the charging informations and charged Truax with six counts of attempted murder.
At the pretrial conference on January 12, 2004, the trial court set a jury trial for February 9, 2005. On January 27, 2005, the trial court continued the jury trial to March 30, 2005, because of court congestion. Truax objected to the continuance on February 4, 2005, and the trial court denied his objection on February 8, 2005.
On March 15, 2005, Truax filed a motion to suppress statements that he made to the police. Following a suppression hearing on March 29, 2005, the trial court ruled that the motion was moot pursuant to an agreement between the parties. On March 27, 2005, Truax filed a motion to dismiss for violation of his speedy trial request, which the court denied on March 29, 2005. Also on March 29, 2005, Truax filed a motion to dismiss arguing that the trial court did not have personal or subject matter jurisdiction over the case. The trial court denied the motion on March 30, 2005.
A four-day jury trial began on March 29, 2005. The jury found Truax guilty of four counts of attempted murder and acquitted him of two counts of attempted murder. After a sentencing hearing on May 5, 2005, the trial court found no aggravating or mitigating circumstances. The court sentenced Truax to the presumptive thirty-year sentence for all four counts. It ordered three of the sentences to be served concurrently with each other, one of the sentences to be served consecutively to the others, and suspended twenty years of the total sentence, leaving Truax to serve an aggregate term of sixty years, twenty suspended. Truax now appeals.
Truax first argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for discharge pursuant to Indiana Criminal Rule 4(B). In particular, Truax argues that he was denied his right to a speedy trial; therefore, his subsequent trial and conviction were in contravention of the law and the proper remedy is a discharge.
In resolving this issue, we note that the right to a speedy trial is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and by Article I, Section 12 of the Indiana Constitution. Clark v. State, 659 N.E.2d 548, 551 (Ind.1995). The provisions of Criminal Rule 4 implement a defendant's right to a speedy trial by establishing time deadlines by which trials must be held. Collins v. State, 730 N.E.2d 181, 182 (Ind.Ct.App.2000). Criminal Rule 4(B)(1) provides, in relevant part, as follows:
If any defendant held in jail on an indictment or an affidavit shall move for an early trial, he shall be discharged if not brought to trial within seventy (70) calendar days from the date of such motion, except where a continuance within said period is had on his motion, or the delay is otherwise caused by his act, or where there was not sufficient time to try him during such seventy (70) calendar days because of the congestion of the court calendar.
A defendant must maintain a position reasonably consistent with his request for a speedy trial, and he must object—at the earliest opportunity—to a trial setting that is beyond the seventy-day time period. Hill v. State, 777 N.E.2d 795, 798 (Ind.Ct.App.2002). The Rule explicitly provides that court congestion is an exception to the seventy-day time period. Ind. Crim. R. 4(B)(1); Paul v. State, 799 N.E.2d 1194, 1197 (Ind.Ct.App.2003). A trial court's finding of congestion is presumed to be valid. Logan v. State, 836 N.E.2d 467, 474 (Ind.Ct.App.2005). A defendant may challenge the trial court's finding of congestion but he must demonstrate that the finding was factually or legally inaccurate. Collins, 730 N.E.2d at 183. It is the defendant's burden to present sufficient evidence that the finding of congestion was clearly erroneous. Bridwell v. State, 659 N.E.2d 552, 554 (Ind. 1995).
In reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to discharge pursuant to Criminal Rule 4(B), we apply a clearly erroneous standard. Paul, 799 N.E.2d at 1197. We will not reverse the trial court's decision unless the defendant has made a showing of clear error that leaves us with a firm conviction that a mistake was made. Id.
Here, on December 20, 2004, Truax filed his motion for a speedy trial under Criminal Rule 4(B)(1). Therefore, the trial court had an affirmative duty to try Truax by February 28, 2005—the seventieth day. On January 12, 2005, the trial court set the jury trial for February 9, 2005. On January 27, 2005, the trial court, on its own motion, continued the trial date because of court congestion and reset the trial for March 30, 2005. Truax objected to the continuance on February 4, 2005. On February 8, 2005, the trial court denied Truax's objection:
Due to the fact that the Court's calendar is particularly congested due to a change in the Judge and court personnel with the new Judicial term so that re-setting the trial in this cause could not be avoided. In addition, the Senior Judge is recuperating from knee surgery making long trials difficult even if the calendar permitted.
Appellant's App. p. 4. Truax did not respond to the trial court's ruling until March 27, 2005, when he filed his motion to dismiss alleging that the trial court's calendar had not actually been congested on the date for which the trial had been set. The trial court denied Truax's motion to dismiss.
As evidence that the trial court's calendar was not congested, Truax presents chronological case summaries from four other cases that were before the trial court at the time Truax's case was scheduled to go to trial. Appellant's App. p. 131-49. Truax claims that these summaries, printed on October 17, 2005, demonstrate that there was no court congestion on February 9, 2005—his originally-scheduled trial date. Thus, Truax argues that the trial court's finding of court congestion was factually and legally inaccurate and his right to a speedy trial was violated. However, to determine whether a trial court's finding of congestion was accurate, it is necessary to view the trial court's calendar on the date that the court granted the trial continuance—here, January 27, 2005. See Collins, 730 N.E.2d at 184-85 (). To prove that the trial court's finding of court congestion was legally and factually inaccurate, Truax needed to present evidence, based on the trial court's January 27, 2005, calendar, that the trial court's calendar was not prospectively congested on February 9, 2005.2 Truax did not present this evidence; therefore, there is no evidence establishing that the trial court's February 9, 2005, calendar was not congested...
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