Escape
Interpretations of the requisite intent
• Under these circumstances, we can only conclude that where, as here, inmates have no intent or plan to flee from detention in the penal facility in which they are confined, they cannot be guilty of the crime of escape when they merely enter restricted areas of the facility without permission. They may be in violation of facility rules, and can be punished accordingly, but have not committed a crime.
Interpretations of the requisite intent
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Definitions
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Definitions and interpretations of “arrest”
Definitions and interpretations of “deadly weapon”
“Bodily injury”: Definitions and interpretations
“Bodily injury”: When “bodily injury” must be inflicted
Generally, there is no justification for escape
Elements
• A person, except as provided in [IC 35-44.1-3-4(b)], who intentionally flees from lawful detention commits escape, a Level 5 felony.
Enhancement
• [T]he offense is a Level 4 felony if, while committing it, the person draws or uses a deadly weapon or inflicts bodily injury on another person.
State v. Moore, 914 N.E.2d 304, 307 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), trans. denied(emphasis added)
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Definitions
• “Lawful detention” means:
• In the present case, [the defendant] and his confederates fled the cottage they had been placed in by breaking a lock off of a door, forcing open a second door, and removing a board covering a window. [The defendant] admitted that he had intended to leave the [penal facility’s] property. [The defendant] intentionally fled from the cottage where he had been lawfully detained.
Huffman v. State, 659 N.E.2d 214, 215 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995), trans. denied
• The fact that [the defendant] went over the wall . . . and left the area was sufficient evidence for the trial court to find or infer that [the defendant] had intentionally fled from detention.
Powers v. State, 539 N.E.2d 950, 951 (Ind. 1989), reh’g denied (citing Grimes v. State, 454 N.E.2d 388, 392 (Ind. 1983))
• The evidence shows that the officer handcuffed [the defendant] and buckled him into the passenger seat of the patrol car. The officer told [the defendant] to stay in the car. Although his hands were handcuffed behind him, [the defendant] managed to unbuckle the seat belt, which was an act fairly characterized as an act requiring physical skill. After the officer had again buckled him into the passenger seat, [the defendant] again managed to unbuckle the seat belt. Further, when asked why he had run, [the defendant] responded that the officer would have run, too, if he were going to jail. The evidence is sufficient to support the determination that [the defendant] entertained the specific intent to flee from lawful detention.
Taylor v. State, 659 N.E.2d 1054, 1058-59 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995), reh’g denied, trans. denied
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Interpretation of “detention in a facility for custody of persons alleged or found to be delinquent children”
• Indiana Code Section 31-37-19-6(b) describes the facilities in which a court may order persons alleged or found to be delinquent children to be detained. Specifically, after a child has been determined to be a delinquent child, a court may (1) award wardship to the Department of Correction (“DOC”) for housing in a correctional facility for children or community based correctional facility for children, IC 31-37-19-6(b)(2)(A), or (2) order the child to be placed in (a) a juvenile detention facility, IC 31-37-19-6(b)(2)(B); (b) a shelter care facility, IC 31-37-19-6(B)(2)(D), (E); or (c) a secure private facility, IC 31-37-19-6(b)(2)(F). Thus, in order to prove that [the respondent] fled from lawful detention, the State was required to show that she fled from commitment to the DOC, a juvenile detention facility, a shelter care facility, or a secure private facility.
(1) arrest;
(2) custody following surrender in lieu of arrest;
(3) detention in a penal facility;
(4) detention in a facility for custody of persons alleged or found to be delinquent children;
(5) detention under a law authorizing civil commitment in lieu of criminal proceedings or authorizing such detention while criminal proceedings are held in abeyance;
(6) detention for extradition or deportation;
(7) placement in a community corrections program’s residential facility;
(8) electronic monitoring;
(9) custody for purposes incident to any of the above including transportation, medical diagnosis or treatment, court appearances, work, or recreation; or
(10) any other detention for law enforcement purposes.
• Except as provided in [IC 35-31.5-2-186(a)(7)] and [IC 35-31.5-2-186(a)(8)], [“lawful detention”] does not include supervision of a person on probation or parole or constraint incidental to release with or without bail.
• [“Lawful detention”] does not include electronic monitoring through the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle under IC 35-33-5-9.
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Definitions and interpretations of “arrest”
• For definitions and more interpretations of “arrest,” please review Arrest.
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Interpretation of “custody following surrender in lieu of arrest”
• Detention also includes those situations in which the defendant surrenders in lieu of arrest.
Mesarosh v. State, 801 N.E.2d 200, 203 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004)
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Definition and interpretation of “detention in a penal facility”
• Penal facility” means a state prison, correctional facility, county jail, penitentiary, house of correction, or any other facility for confinement of persons under sentence, or awaiting trial or sentence, for offenses.
• When a person is ordered confined to a given prison that order of confinement does not mean that that person must be kept within a given four walls but it does mean that that person is confined for restraint upon his freedom by the authorities of that institution, and if the proper authorities determine that he may leave the four walls of the institution for the purpose of performing some duty or accomplishing some task given him, and while outside the institution walls he escapes, he is guilty of escape from the correctional institution to which he was committed . . . .
State v. Rardon, 46 N.E.2d 605, 608 (Ind. 1943)
Definitions and interpretations of “deadly weapon”
• For definitions and interpretations of “deadly weapon,” please review Deadly Weapon.
“Bodily injury”: Definitions and interpretations
• For definitions and interpretations of “bodily injury,” please review Bodily Injury.
“Bodily injury”: When “bodily injury” must be inflicted
• We disagree with [the defendant’s position that one of the essential elements required to convict a defendant of . . . felony escape is a showing that the bodily injury was inflicted at the time the defendant gains his momentary freedom or during the events leading up to that point, i.e., while he remains under lawful detention.
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Interpretation of “custody for purposes incident to any of the above”
• It will be noted from the . . . language of the statute that the fact that the [defendant] was confined in Central State Hospital for treatment at the time of her escape does not prevent the State from prosecuting as an escapee from the [Indiana] Women’s Prison.
Zimmer v. State, 247 N.E.2d 195, 196 (Ind. 1969), reh’g denied
Definitions and interpretations of “lawful detention”: Interpretations of “any other detention for law enforcement purposes”
• [D]etention for law enforcement purposes does not require the presence of a law enforcement officer.
Rowe v. State, 813 N.E.2d 1232, 1235 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004), trans. denied
See Anglin v. State, 787 N.E.2d 1012, 1017 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied(“IC 35-41-1-18 [recodified at IC 35-31.5-2-186 without substantive changes] does not explicitly limit its application to situations in which a law enforcement officer has control of an individual. While that would generally be the accepted view of many of the factors which are considered as lawful detention, it is not necessarily so.”)
• Further, what is critical in determining the meaning of “any other detention for law enforcement purposes” is that an individual is being detained so that he is subject to legitimate law enforcement purposes. In this case, the law enforcement purpose for which [the defendant] was ordered to wait in the hallway was for transportation to the jail and incarceration to serve the sentence which he had just been ordered to serve. While the initial detention itself was not performed by a law enforcement officer, that is not fatal to the conviction for the crime as charged by the State. The trial court’s order indicated that the sentence was to begin immediately, that actual incarceration would take place momentarily, and that [the defendant] was being turned over to the Sheriff’s Department as soon as the hearing was over. [The defendant] was “detained” by the trial court in that he was not free to leave the building as soon as he was informed that the Sheriff’s Department would pick him up at the designated location in the courthouse. That [the defendant] was not in the physical custody of the transport officer at the time that he fled does not exclude the conclusion that he was in “detention for law enforcement purposes.”
Anglin v. State, 787 N.E.2d 1012, 1017 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied(emphasis added)
• We . . . hold that where a police officer places a person in handcuffs pursuant to a Writ of Body Attachment, the person is “lawfully detained” within the meaning of the escape statute even though the Writ later proves to be defective.
Leshore v. State, 755 N.E.2d 164, 165 (Ind. 2001)
See Mesarosh v. State, 801 N.E.2d 200, 203 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004)(citing Leshore v. State, 755 N.E.2d 164, 165 (Ind. 2001))(“Our supreme court has previously held that a person is ‘lawfully detained’ within the meaning of the escape statute when a police officer places him or her in handcuffs pursuant to a writ of body attachment.”)
• Warrants other than the one on which the prisoner is detained at the time of escape do not establish that he was “lawfully detained.”
Isom v. State, 479 N.E.2d 61, 65 (Ind. Ct. App. 1985), overruled on other grounds by Schwass v. State, 554 N.E.2d 1127, 1129 (Ind. 1990))
Attempt
• An Attempted Escape is a frustrated escape. Unless its plain meaning is to be ignored, [the statute] creates a crime having three elements:
1. The intent to escape from lawful confinement . . .
2. The performance of some overt act or acts which is a step or steps toward the commission of the crime of Escape, and
3. The failure of the escape.
This breakdown accords with the rule applicable to “attempts” in general as recognized by case law and text writers.
• The present escape statute . . . plainly elevates the crime to a . . . felony when bodily injury is inflicted while the defendant is in the process of fleeing such actual custody, which is punishable because it “poses the threat of violence and injury due to the fact that the one supervising the prisoner will attempt to resist the prisoner’s doing anything other than what the prisoner was ordered to do.”
Isom v. State, 479 N.E.2d 61, 65 n. 3 (Ind. Ct. App. 1985), overruled on other grounds by Schwass v. State, 554 N.E.2d 1127, 1129 (Ind. 1990)(quoting Utley v. State, 281 N.E.2d 888, 890 (Ind. 1972))
Inherently included offenses
• [R]esisting law enforcement is not an inherently included offense of the crime of attempted escape.
Taylor v. State, 659 N.E.2d 1054, 1061 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995), reh’g denied, trans. denied
• [U]nauthorized absence from home detention is not inherently included in the offense of escape.
Kilgore v. State, 922 N.E.2d 114, 119 (Ind. Ct. App.2010), trans. denied
Fisher v. State, 294 N.E.2d 632, 634 (Ind. Ct. App. 1973)(citing 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law s 75(1), p. 228)
See Nicholson v. State, 768 N.E.2d 1043, 1049 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002)(citing IC 35-41-5-2)(“In order to prove the defendants were guilty of attempted escape, the State had to prove [the defendants] agreed with each other to commit the felony of escape, and that an act in furtherance of that agreement was committed.”)
Violating a home detention order or removing an electronic monitoring device or GPS tracking device: Another form of escape
• A person who knowingly or intentionally violates a home detention order or intentionally removes an electronic monitoring device or GPS tracking device commits escape, a Level 6 felony.
• For more information about attempt, please review Attempt.
Generally, there is no justification for escape
• [T]he degrading circumstances of an inmate’s confinement are generally rejected as a justification for prison escape.
Walker v. State, 381 N.E.2d 88, 89 (Ind. 1978)
• [W]here the imprisonment is under color of law, the prisoner is not entitled to resort to self-help but must apply for his release through regular legal channels, even though he might be able to show such defects in the procedure by which he was arrested, tried, sentenced, committed, or imprisoned as to justify or require his release on appeal or habeas corpus.
Johnson v. State, 282 N.E.2d 802, 803 (Ind. 1972)
See Carpenter v. State, 382 N.E.2d 1026, 1028 (Ind. Ct. App. 1978)(“[E]ven if [the defendant] could establish such defects surrounding his original arrest for theft as to require his release on appeal or through habeas corpus proceedings, that nevertheless would not provide a justification for escaping . . . .”)
See also Leshore v. State, 755 N.E.2d 164, 167 (Ind. 2001)(“[A] citizen may not escape from a police officer’s detention even if the grounds upon which the detention is based are later determined to be defective.”)
• This rather severe attitude is founded upon sound public policy, because jail breaks are extremely disruptive to prison routine; dangerous to guards, police and the public; and to make it the province of every prisoner in jail to decide for himself whether the conditions justified his escape would only serve to increase the number of attempts to break jail, so that a plea of justification for escape, if permissible at all, should be recognized only in the most extreme situations.
Carpenter v. State, 382 N.E.2d 1026, 1028 (Ind. Ct. App. 1978)
Violating a home detention order or removing an electronic monitoring device or GPS tracking device: Interpretation of the requisite intent
• [The defendant] argues that he did not commit escape . . . because he “was not escaping to anywhere” under the “dictionary definition” of the word “escape.” We note that IC 35-44-3-5(b) [recodified at IC 35-44.1-3-4(b) without substantive changes] does not require proof that a defendant was attempting to leave the jurisdiction or go anywhere in particular to sustain a conviction for escape, but, rather, requires only proof that the defendant knowingly or intentionally violated a home detention order or intentionally removed an electronic monitoring device.
Brown v. State, 894 N.E.2d 598, 599 n. 2 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008)(internal citation omitted)
Violating a home detention order or removing an electronic monitoring device or GPS tracking device: No requirement of lawful detention
• [IC 35-44.1-3-4(b)] does not require a lawful detention. Rather, [IC 35-44.1-3-4(b)] requires only the violation of a home detention order or removal of an electronic monitoring device.
Grabarczyk v. State, 772 N.E.2d 428, 431 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002)
Violating a home detention order or removing an electronic monitoring device or GPS tracking device: Interpretation of “home detention order”
• [The defendant’s] argument that the order placing him on home detention was “flawed on its face” because it applied to offenders on house arrest during probation is misplaced. The trial court issued two orders regarding [the defendant’s] home detention. The first order is entitled “Order on Motion for Reduction of Bond” and provides: “Bond is reduced to $50,000.00 surety and conditioned upon the defendant being on home detention with work release. The terms of home detention are set forth in the separate order filed herewith.” The “separate order filed herewith” is entitled “Order on House Arrest” and lists the conditions of house arrest for a defendant on probation. While the Order on House Arrest was not tailored to [the defendant’s] pretrial home detention, the Order on Motion for Reduction of Bond clearly placed [the defendant] on home detention. Thus, regardless of the inapplicable language in the Order on House Arrest, [the defendant] was ordered to submit to home detention as a condition of his bond.
Grabarczyk v. State, 772 N.E.2d 428, 431 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002)(emphasis added)(citations omitted)