Christapher Batchelor v. State of Indiana

Summary

The Indiana Supreme Court reviewed a jury instruction defining when a driver “flees” for purposes of felony resisting law enforcement. The Court held that the challenged instruction misstated the mens rea and potentially invaded the jury’s province, but concluded that the instructions as a whole cured the defect and that the evidence supported the conviction. The Court affirmed the felony-resisting conviction and summarily affirmed the defendant’s felony-battery and misdemeanor-resisting convictions.

Holdings

1. A passive failure to object or mere acquiescence to an instruction does not establish invited error. Invited error requires evidence that the alleged error resulted from the defendant's affirmative actions as part of a deliberate, well-informed trial strategy.
2. Instruction 22 was an incorrect statement of law because it permitted the State to establish criminal culpability through what a reasonable driver would have done, effectively reducing the required knowing-or-intentional mens rea to civil negligence.
3. Instruction 22 was erroneous because it emphasized whether reasonable safety concerns justified Batchelor's delay and thereby risked minimizing other evidence relevant to whether he intentionally fled, contrary to the jury's authority to determine the law and facts.
4. The jury charge as a whole cured the defective supplemental instruction because the court repeatedly instructed the jury on the statutory knowingly-or-intentionally mens rea, the State's burden to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt, and the jury's authority to weigh all evidence.
5. Any instructional error was harmless because the evidence clearly established that Batchelor knowingly fled, and the jury could not properly have found otherwise.
6. The court expressly disapproved the Cowans instruction and directed trial courts to use Indiana Pattern Criminal Jury Instruction 5.3040 for resisting by fleeing.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Batchelor's failure to object to the fleeing instruction constituted invited error that barred appellate review.
2. Whether the instruction defining fleeing improperly used a reasonable-driver or civil-negligence standard and thereby relieved the State of proving that Batchelor knowingly or intentionally fled.
3. Whether the instruction improperly emphasized safety-related facts and invaded the jury's constitutional authority to determine the law and facts.
4. Whether the jury charge as a whole cured the defects in the challenged instruction.
5. Whether any instructional error was harmless because the evidence clearly established knowing flight.
6. Whether the felony-battery and misdemeanor-resisting convictions should be affirmed summarily.

Disposition

affirmed