The Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Aaron Hernandez trials have dominated courtroom coverage in recent months. But with guilty convictions being handed down in both cases and Tsarnaev’s sentencing still pending, there’s a case awaiting a decision from the Indiana Supreme Court that deserves America’s attention for a while–the Elkhart Four case.

The “Elkhart Four” was the nickname given to four teenagers from Elkhart County, Indiana who in 2012 were charged with murder after their fifth accomplice, Danzele Johnson, 21, was shot. Johnson was killed by the scared homeowner when the group attempted to burglarize what they thought was an empty home. Levi Sparks, now 20; Jose Quiroz Jr., 19; Blake Layman, 18; and Anthony Sharp Jr., 20, are each currently serving a five-decade sentence in prison, having become convicted murderers without ever killing anyone. If you’re asking how that could even be possible, the answer is a charge called felony murder.

They didn’t kill anyone, but the law says they’re murderers. My story on the #ElkhartFour coming on Sunday. @indystar pic.twitter.com/6dJ4P2UYFS

— Kristine Guerra (@kristine_guerra) April 17, 2015

Felony murder dictates that if someone dies in the commission or attempted commission of a felony everyone responsible for the felony can be charged with first-degree murder. When trying a felony murder case, the prosecutor does not need to prove there was intent to commit a murder, just intent to commit the initial crime–in this case the burglary.

What makes the Elkhart Four case so strange is that in most states felony murder can only be charged if an innocent person is killed, not if the person who is killed is also a perpetrator.

Timothy O’Neill, a law professor at John Marshall Law School in Chicago told the Indianapolis Star,

It’s one thing to say you commit a robbery or a theft. You’re not saying the person is a completely innocent person. Blameworthiness for theft doesn’t necessarily turn a person into a murderer. There’s a disconnect.

In October Layman, Sharp, and Sparks asked for their cases to be transferred to the Indiana Supreme Court. On February 26, 2015 the Supreme Court held oral arguments on the Elkhart case, but the justices have yet to decide whether or not to rule on the case. Quiroz, who was the only one of the four to plead guilty to the charges, has never asked the Court of Appeals to overturn his conviction.

According to the Indianapolis Star, Indiana Public Defender Council Executive Director Larry Landis finds the felony murder law unjust and plans to push for reformative legislation next session, but he admits that “legislators are not likely to support a bill that, in essence, helps people who have committed a crime.” Landis said,

It’s much safer to sponsor a bill that increases the penalty for a crime. No one has ever lost an election for supporting a law to enhance penalty on a criminal.

Now we’re all waiting to see what the Indiana Supreme Court will do. If it decides to rule on the case and grants three of the Elkhart Four an appeal, the decision would give ammo to critics lobbying for the law’s repeal. While the felony murder law was intended to hold people accountable for committing dangerous acts that result in someone’s death, its misses the mark when individuals aren’t culpable. It will be interesting to see what the state Supreme Court decides in this case, but there’s no justice in sentencing teen boys to spend most (if not the rest) of their lives behind bars as convicted murders without even killing anyone.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It’s Christmas! And in honor of the spirit of the day, I am going to give you all a present. (For everyone who does not celebrate Christmas, I am still giving you a gift just because it is more fun to give than to receive.) My gift is some free advice that could change your life: do not go to Indiana if you plan on drinking and being annoying. Because that’s illegal.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Now you know those laws that were created four hundred years ago and are never enforced, but also never repealed, so we all like to make fun of them? You know what I’m talking about. Like how in my home state of Alabama, there may or may not be a law against wearing fake mustaches that cause laughter in church. Or how in Arkansas, you can’t keep an alligator in the bathtub (incidentally, famed critic Dorothy Parker once bought two baby alligators and put them in a bathtub while she decided what to do with them. She came home one day to find a note from her ex-maid saying she quit because she “cannot work in a house with alligators” and that she would have told Parker this earlier, but that she “never thought the subject would come up.” So maybe this law is a good idea if you want to keep good help, but I digress … ) The one I’m writing about today is not one of those archaic laws. This one was actually upheld quite recently.

Rodgregus Morgan was drunk when he was arrested, it is true. However, that alone was not why he was arrested. You see, the cops thought that he was being annoying and, really, in Indiana, that is all it takes. Indiana has a public intoxication law – enacted in 2012, so, again, not an archaic one – that says you cannot be drunk in public and harass, annoy, or alarm another person.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Morgan, as mentioned before, was drunk. So when he wouldn’t leave the bus shelter where he had fallen asleep, even though a cop asked him to do so, he was arrested because, well, that is just plain annoying, right? I mean, it really annoys me when people don’t do what I ask.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Morgan had a different take on the matter: he “wasn’t being annoying;” he was “waiting for the bus.” Hmm. That’s harder to classify as annoying, but I can try to make it work. Maybe the bus would have been really overcrowded and let’s face it, when I cannot get a seat and have to stand, that’s pretty annoying. But would that really be Morgan’s fault? Or is it a product of the situation itself?

At any rate, let’s see what the courts have to say about this situation. Well, an appeals court said annoying is too hard to define, and so they overturned the conviction. I’d disagree with this ruling. I may not be able to give annoyingness a concrete definition, but, like pornography, I for sure know it when I see it.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Luckily, we can move on to the Indiana Supreme Court to find some common sense. In that high court, they basically agreed with me. Which, in my book, makes them the exact opposite of annoying, because I am always right. They said that you can tell what being annoying is by using the reasonable person test and that the statute was perfectly legit. However, they then said that Morgan wasn’t being annoying and so they dropped his conviction. But that is actually beside the point in this morale tale. The point, of course, being that you can be arrested for being drunk and annoying. Which means that many people I know should stay far away from this state because I know a heck of a lot of annoying drunks.

Anyway, I hope everyone has benefited from my present whether or not you are celebrating today. And for the many of you who found a paid vacation to Indiana as your stocking stuffer, I am sorry if I put a damper on your exciting present.

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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