criminal attorney indianapolis

Almost every single day our office receives calls from people charged with crimes involving victims on the other side. Just as often, the accused will say to us, “the victim doesn’t want me charged, but I got arrested and charged anyways, why?” Or, “the victim asked the prosecutor to dismiss the charges, but the prosecutor won’t, why?” The simple and straightforward answer is one that people don’t want to hear and often don’t understand. If…

Arrested at the Indianapolis 500? Now What? The Indianapolis 500, or what is often billed as The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, is typically set on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend each year. Between the permanent seating around the track and the infield areas, there are about 300,000 people that flood the gates of the speedway each year. With that many people together in a confined area, on a holiday weekend, and probably fueled by…

A Look at Motions to Suppress Motion to Suppress, What is it and When Should it be Used One of the tools in war chest of every Indianapolis criminal defense lawyer is the Motion to Suppress.  A Motion to Suppress is basically a motion an attorney can file asking the judge to order that certain evidence is removed from the case and not able to be used in the trial due to some sort of…

What is the Crime of Corrupt Business Influence in Indiana? Indiana has a criminal statute that goes by a weird name.  The statute that is being filed with more regularity is the crime of corrupt business influence.  The statute was designed to punish longstanding corrupt criminal business practices that didn’t fit into a different type of crime.  The corrupt business influence statute reads as: A person: (1) who has knowingly or intentionally received any proceeds directly…

Can Community Corrections Take Away Credit Time on Violations? Recently in Richard Shepard v. State of Indiana, under case number 84S01-1704-CR-00190, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the director a Community Corrections program lacked the authority to deprive a defendant’s good time credit. In 2013, Shepard pleaded guilty to dealing in cocaine as a class B felony and, in exchange, received an 11-year sentence in the DOC with 900 days total credit, including 450 days…

Certain counties around the state have put extensive time and resources into developing problem solving courts to help come up with creative solutions to criminal issues in our society. These courts are built around rehabilitation rather than punitive punishment to help give a different approach to certain types of crimes and situations such as drug, mental health, and veteran type issues. Although most of these programs have strict rules on eligibility, if you can get…

Surprisingly, one of the most common phone calls we receive as defense attorneys at Banks & Brower is that of a victim wanting to drop charges against a defendant and/or looking to hire us to help the defendant. And, even more unsurprisingly, as former prosecutors, these calls made up probably 50% of the calls we received when we worked for the state of Indiana. Why are they so common? The answer probably lies in the…