# Blake Layman v. State of Indiana Levi Sparks v. State of Indiana

> Indiana Court of Appeals · September 12, 2014 · 17 N.E.3d 957

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9803729

## Case

- **Full name:** Blake LAYMAN, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff; Levi Sparks, Appellant-Defendant, v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff
- **Court:** Indiana Court of Appeals
- **Decided:** September 12, 2014
- **Citations:** 17 N.E.3d 957; 2014 WL 4494228
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Kirsch
- **Judges:** Bailey, Kirsch
- **Cited by:** 3 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Vacated by Blake Layman & Levi Sparks v. State of Indiana, 42 N.E.3d 972 (2015).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9803729

## Opinion text

KIRSCH, Judge,
dissenting.
In Palmer v. State, 704 N.E.2d 124 (1999), our Supreme Court was presented with the question whether a kidnapper in the commission of a kidnapping commits felony murder under the Indiana murder statute when a law enforcement officer kills the accomplice of the person committing the kidnapping. It held that under the circumstances then before the court, the kidnapper committed felony murder. Id. at 125 .
A year later in Jenkins v. State, 726 N.E.2d 268, 271 (Ind.2000), the Court upheld a felony murder conviction arising from a robbery where the “defendant and his co-perpetrator engaged in dangerously violent and threatening conduct and that their conduct created a situation that exposed persons present to the danger of death.”
In both Palmer and Jenkins , the defendants were (1) armed and (2) engaged in dangerously violent and threatening conduct when they committed the underlying felony. In Palmer , the defendant pointed a loaded and cocked handgun at the head of a police officer and fired it, injuring the officer. In Jenkins , the armed defendant and his co-perpetrator tied up the two victims and were in the process of murdering one of them when one of the victims got loose, picked up a gun and shot and killed the co-perpetrator.
In both Palmer and Jenkins , the Court concluded that the defendants’ conduct clearly raised the foreseeable possibility that the intended victim might resist or that law enforcement would respond and thereby created a risk of death to persons present and that the defendant’s felonious conduct was the mediate or immediate cause of the co-perpetrator’s death.
Here, by contrast, sixteen-year old Blake Layman and seventeen-year old Levi Sparks were (1) unarmed and (2) attempting to commit a non-violent burglary of what they believed was an unoccupied residence. The defendants here were attempting to commit a non-violent crime when the unforeseeable tragedy giving rise to this case unfolded.
Because the circumstances here are very different from those before the Court in Palmer and Jenkins , I respectfully dissent from my colleagues’ conclusion that Indiana Code section 35-42-1-1, the felony *971 murder statute, was properly applied in this case.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9803729. Public record. Not legal advice.