Latest news with #Vaidik
Chicago Tribune
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Porter County students hear oral arguments in appeal weighing child discipline vs. abuse
Chesterton High School senior Karalena Heredia had a memorable 18th birthday Tuesday, serving as a student bailiff for a three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals. About 100 students in the criminal justice class at Wheeler High School heard oral arguments in a case involving parental privilege when it comes to disciplining a child – and where to draw the line. All three judges – Nancy Vaidik, Elizabeth Tavitas and Mary DeBoer – served as judges in Northwest Indiana before their service on the appellate court. After the oral arguments were heard from defense attorney David Joley, of Fort Wayne, and John Oosterhoff, of Indianapolis, representing the state, the three judges answered students' questions about anything except the case. The court's opinion in Norwood v. State is expected in about a month, DeBoer said. The court holds about 40 of these Appeals on Wheels events every year, Vaidik said. 'It's a great event for us, but it's a lot of work,' she said. It's good for students to have a positive first encounter with the legal system, but it's good for the judges, too. 'We get to see people. We get to interact with people,' she said. When Vaidik was Porter Superior Court judge, she got about 100 calls a day, she said. It's now just a handful a week. Vaidik pointed out to the students that the three-judge panel was all women, something she would not have encountered when she was their age. In fact, when she began her legal career, she encountered few women serving as judges or even attorneys, she said. Now the 15-member Court of Appeals has seven women. DeBoer told the students she first served as a deputy prosecutor, then magistrate, then was appointed Porter Circuit Court judge by then-Gov. Eric Holcomb in 2019, then was appointed to the Court of Appeals last September. 'My first judgeship, I ran for office,' replacing a predecessor she disagreed with, Vaidik said. 'I think I can do better,' she thought. 'How arrogant I was.' Running for judge meant campaigning, including passing out candy at Fourth of July parades and 'going to every single pancake breakfast there was in the county, and I can't eat pancakes,' Vaidik said. 'We're here to encourage you' to pursue careers in the legal field, Vaidik told the criminal justice students. Instructor Ralph Wheeler said the students in that course had already covered court procedures, including a field trip to the federal court. Appeals on Wheels was a good experience for them, he said. Porter Superior Court Judge Christopher Buckley thought so, too. He was enlightened by the Norwood v. State case and the three judges' questions directed to attorneys on both sides. The case involves a mother of an 11-year-old boy who was frantic when she left her son home alone during work and couldn't contact him by phone, text messages or even through a videogame, Joley explained. He provided the narrative for the three judges, but also to explain the case to the audience. 'She actually calls her DCS (Department of Child Services) caseworker: 'Can you help me? I don't know where he's at,'' Joley said. The mom leaves work and finds her son in a shopping center parking lot. While the mom is pulling the boy out of the car by his hair, as he's refusing to get out, he punches her. They get into a scuffle, and she's sitting on top of him, restraining him, Joley said. 'She was angry at this point,' he explained. When police arrived, they found the mom had her son in a chokehold and the boy was gasping for air. The mother was found guilty of felony domestic battery and felony strangulation and sentenced to a total of six years, four incarcerated and two on probation. 'The amount of force she used against LN,' the unnamed minor, was excessive, Oosterhoff said. DCS had been involved with the family because the boy had run away before this incident, he said. In that case, the mother drove across a golf course to chase down the boy, Oosterhoff said. Joley argued that parental privilege, the right to determine appropriate discipline, applies in his client's case. Oosterhoff countered that the mom's measures were excessive, crossing the line as to what's acceptable.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Yahoo
Indiana Appeals Court affirms Second Amendment doesn't apply to machine guns
A "Glock switch" device — pictured with a counterfeit logo — can convert the firearm into a machine gun. Glock Corporation doesn't make converters for its products. (Photo from the U.S. Department of Justice) The Constitution's Second Amendment protections don't include machine guns, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled last week, citing existing case law. The term includes the fully automatic firearms and conversion devices. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officers arrested a then-18-year-old Jacob McGee, toting a Glock 22 fitted with a conversion device, in 2023. He was convicted of Level 5 felony machine gun possession in Marion Superior Court and sentenced to four years: two in community corrections and two suspended to probation. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' McGee appealed. He argued Indiana's ban on machine guns violates his constitutional right to bear arms, and, alternatively, that there wasn't enough evidence that he knew the 'Glock switch' made his firearm into a machine gun. In a Feb. 19 opinion, a three-judge panel cited a long history of recognition that this constitutional right is 'not unlimited.' It agreed with 'the overwhelming number' of federal district courts and federal appellate courts that 'have uniformly concluded' that the Second Amendment's plain text doesn't protect machine guns because they're 'dangerous and unusual weapons.' 'McGee's Second Amendment challenge thus fails,' Judge Nancy Vaidik, the opinion's author, wrote. The judicial panel also decided there was enough evidence to support McGee's conviction. It noted that McGee said he bought the Glock 22 in a private sale for $800 the day before his arrest, and that it came with the switch. He testified the seller told him 'what it was.' When asked what one does, he responded that it 'make(s) your gun shoot fast basically' but said he didn't realize it would enable the firearm to shoot multiple bullets in a single pull of the trigger.' The trial court opined that McGee still understood the switch would amplify the gun's ability to fire beyond semi-automatic functions. Vaidik wrote that he'd asked her court to 'reweigh the evidence, which we don't do.' 'The evidence is sufficient to prove McGee knew the switch made his gun a machine gun,' Vaidik concluded. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Chicago Tribune
07-02-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Court of Appeals returns to Gary for oral argument for first time in 20-plus years
For three Indiana Court of Appeals judges, their courtroom on Friday looked different — instead of working in a courtroom, they worked in an Indiana University Northwest auditorium. Appeals Court Judges Nancy Vaidik, Elizabeth Tavitas and Paul Felix heard an oral argument on the Gary campus as part of the Appeals on Wheels program. It was the program's first visit to Gary since 2002. Appeals on Wheels is an educational program that travels to high schools, colleges, law schools and courtrooms statewide. Court of Appeals judges hear oral arguments and allow visitors to understand more of the judicial process. In recent years, Appeals on Wheels has traveled to high schools in Portage, Munster, and Valparaiso. Between 2001 and June 2013, the court has done more than 400 Appeals on Wheels cases, according to the Court of Appeals website. Court of Appeals judges each write about 140 opinions each year, Vaidik said, and look at about 500 appeals. Appeals on Wheels cases operate the same as in a courtroom, but judges hear questions from audience members. Students from Merrillville High School, Valparaiso High School, Bishop Noll Institute and IUN asked questions Friday. Questions included how judges stay impartial, how cases are chosen and why they chose to work in law. Attendees weren't allowed to ask questions about the appeal heard or the judges' opinions. 'We love to get out,' Vaidik said. 'We love to see your faces, and we love to promote what we're doing in the judiciary and trying to encourage people to become lawyers. Vaidik is from Portage and previously served as a Porter Superior Court Judge. She told attendees that she loves to return to Northwest Indiana. 'This is a forgotten part of the state when looking at Indiana as a whole,' she told the audience. Tavitas is from Munster and was a Lake County Superior Court Judge. Judges heard the arguments in McGee vs. State, an appeal for Jacob McGee, an Indianapolis man found guilty of possession of a machine gun, a Level 5 felony. McGee was sentenced to four years in prison, with two years suspended. McGee was sentenced in May 2024, according to online court records. He was found in possession of a handgun with a 'Glock switch' that allows the gun to be fully automatic. During his trial, McGee argued that his Second Amendment right to bear arms was violated, according to Court of Appeals information. His attorney, Jan Berg, argued Friday that prosecutors failed to prove that McGee knew the weapon was a machine gun. '(Police) brought the gun over to him, they showed it to him, and it sounds like he says, 'It's a switch,'' Berg argued. 'That's when they asked him if he knew what it did. He said, 'I haven't used it, but I've been told.' So, he doesn't actually say he knows what it does.' In addition to hearing from Berg, audience members also listened to Deputy Attorney General Justin Roebel's argument for the state. 'Machine guns are the archetype of a dangerous weapon,' Roebel said Friday. 'Machine guns are also uncommon, and they've been highly regulated in this country since they were banned under federal law in 1986.' The court will deliver an opinion on McGee's appeal at a later date.
