Zimmer v. State, 768

• Decision Date: 16 May 1969
• Docket Number: No. 768,768
• Citation: 247 N.E.2d 195
• Parties: Opal Mae ZIMMER, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. S 114.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 195

247 N.E.2d 195

Opal Mae ZIMMER, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 768 S 114.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

May 16, 1969.

Rehearing Denied July 15, 1969.

Robert Robinson, Indanapolis, for appellant.

Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., of Indiana, Duejean C. Garrett, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

GIVAN, Judge.

Appellant was charged by affidavit with the crime of escape from the Indiana Women's Prison. Trial was had by jury. Appellant was found guilty and judgment entered accordingly.

Her sole assignment of error in this Court is that the Trial Court erred in overruling her motion for new trial. The two grounds stated in the motion for new trial are that the verdict of the jury is not sustained by sufficient evidence, and that it is contrary to law.

The record in this case discloses that on September 23, 1965, the Marion County Grand Jury returned an indictment against Opal Mae Zimmer for the violation of the Offenses Against Property Act. On December 27, 1965, trial was had by jury in the Marion County Criminal Court, Number 2 resulting in a verdict of guilty on said charge. The resulting judgment was that appellant be sentenced to the Indiana Women's Prison for not less than one (1) nor more than five (5) years and be disfranchised for a period of five (5) years.

Pursuant to this judgment Opal Mae Zimmer was delivered to the Indiana Women's Prison on January 17, 1966.

At the trial in the court below in this cause the appellant was identified by the Records Clerk of the Women's Prison as being the same Opal Mae Zimmer who was admitted to the Indiana Women's Prison on the above date as above set out.

On March 4, 1966, following her admission to the Indiana Women's Prison, the appellant's transfer to Central State Hospital had been authorized by Dr. J. R. Gambell, Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health, and on March 14, 1966, the appellant was transferred to Central State Hospital, where she was immediately assigned to the security ward. This was done under the authority of Burns 22--309 et seq.

On April 11, 1966, appellant confronted the attendants in the security ward with a gun, forcing them to unlock the door to the ward, thus releasing the appellant and another inmate.

The appellant was not heard from again until September 7, 1966, when the officials of Jefferson City, Missouri, advised that she had been apprehended in that state. State Parole Officer Susan Troutman testified that she went to Missouri and returned the appellant to the Indiana Women's Prison.

The pertinent parts of the statute under which the appellant is charged read as follows:

'Any person sentenced and committed to the * * * Indiana Women's Prison, who shall escape therefrom, shall be deemed guilty of a felony and upon conviction shall be sentenced to the institution from which he or she escaped for a determinate period of not less than one (1) nor more than ten (10) years * * * When it is deemed necessary to transfer a prisoner from one of the prison institutions above named, to another state institution so as to give him or her treatment which the penal institutional to which he or she was originally sentenced cannot give, * * * then an escape from any institution to which he was so later transferred, even though the latter...