determining that admission of a recording of Baer’s jailhouse phone call was not unduly prejudicial because Baer was pursuing a defense of guilty but mentally ill, and the recording was highly probative to establish whether he was faking mental illness
How later courts described this case
- determining that admission of a recording of Baer’s jailhouse phone call was not unduly prejudicial because Baer was pursuing a defense of guilty but mentally ill, and the recording was highly probative to establish whether he was faking mental illness
- rejecting appellant's argument that State must show that he "received and understood the jail handbook" as a "foundational requirement[ ] for establishing consent" to his phone calls being recorded for purposes of Indiana Wiretap Act
- “We have emphasized that the relevant inquiry is not merely whether the matter is prejudicial to the defendant’s interests, but whether ‘it is unfairly prejudicial.’ ” (quoting Steward v. State, 652 N.E.2d 490, 499 (Ind.1995))
- affirming trial court’s admission of recording of jail telephone call made by defendant to his sister
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
concurring.
For the last several decades at least, Indiana law has assigned to judges the duty to decide sentences in criminal cases. Appellate court review of such trial court decisions has been highly deferential, but we have undertaken to review and revise sentences when persuaded that the trial court’s sentence is “inappropriate.”
As for death penalty and life without parole cases, the legislature has now largely shifted the sentencing decision from judges and assigned it instead to juries. I am inclined to think that we should be even less ready to set aside the sentencing judgment of jurors, and that the standard we adopted during the era of judicial sen *767 tencing should probably not apply to second-guess Indiana juries.
The parties here have not joined this question, however, and there appears no reason to reverse the jury’s decision. Accordingly, I join in the Court’s opinion.