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462 N.E.2d 58

Bentley v. State

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided April 19, 1984

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1984-04-19

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“No person shall be held on recognizance or otherwise to answer a criminal charge for a period in aggregate embracing more than one year from the date the criminal charge against such defendant is filed, or from the date of his arrest on such charge, whichever is later; except where delay was caused by his act, or where there was not sufficient time to try him during such period because of congestion of the court calendar;.... Any defendant so held shall, on motion, be discharged.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Stinson v. State, May v. State

“[When an identical charge is refiled, it must be regarded as if there had been no dismissal of the first affidavit, or as if the second affidavit were filed on the same date as the first.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Hornaday v. State

Relies on State Ex Rel. Back v. Starke Circuit Court · State Ex Rel. Hasch v. Johnson CC, Barger, Sp. J.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1984-04-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently October 2003

8 state decisions

40198419902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

PRENTICE, Justice,

¶1concurring in result.

¶2I concur in the result reached by the majority. However, I do not agree that we misconstrued State ex rel. Hasch v. Johnson Circuit Court, (1955) 234 Ind. 429, 127 N.E.2d 600 in State ex rel. Back v. Starke Circuit Court, (1979) 271 Ind. 82, 390 N.E.2d 643.

¶3The statement from Hasch was dicta, the temporary writ having been dissolved because the issue had not been properly presented in the trial court. The statement 1 was also incorrect, although a caveat followed and suggested that an “exception might be as to the intervening period between the dismissal and refiling of the charge — ” (Emphasis added). Obviously such exception must apply. The issue, as stated in the majority opinion is “how long has the defendant been held on recognizance or otherwise to answer a criminal charge.” The date of the initial filing is, therefore, germane only to the determination of the period for which he was held under the first filing. Saying that if the charge is refiled, “it must be regarded as if there had been no dismissal of the first” is simply a grossly erroneous statement, both in Hasch (Supra) and in Back (Supra).

¶4It should also be noted that Back (Supra) was, nevertheless, correctly determined, he having been held, in the aggregate, upon both charges for a period in excess of that allowed by the rule.

¶5. "The obvious purpose and character of the statute (§ 9-1403) upon which the motion to dismiss is based requires that in event the identical charge is refiled, it must be regarded as if there had been no dismissal of the first affidavit, or as if the second affidavit had been filed on the date of the first.” 234 Ind. at 435, 127 N.E.2d at 602-603.

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