By Carson Gerber
Kokomo Tribune
BUNKER HILL – A battery conviction of a man who attacked a prison guard at Miami Correctional Facility has been dropped after the Indiana Supreme Court ruled the charge violated the state’s double jeopardy clause.
Cornelius Hines was found guilty in Miami County Superior Court in 2013 of battery and criminal confinement after he pinned an officer to the wall, hit her head against a filing cabinet and then held her in a headlock.
The court ruled last month the convictions violated the state’s double jeopardy clause because the same evidence was used to establish the essential elements of each crime.
“Based on the charging information, jury instructions and arguments of counsel, we find a reasonable possibility that the same evidence used by the jury to establish the essential elements of battery was also included among the evidence used by the jury to establish the essential elements of criminal confinement,” the court wrote in its opinion.
However, the court upheld Hines’ eight-year sentence on the criminal confinement conviction despite his request for a lesser sentence.
Hines told the court he has a “long-standing, debilitating mental illness,” and argued it distinguishes him from the worst offenders and entitles him to a minimum sentence.
The court noted Hines has been convicted of battery on a child with injury, sexual battery and rape, and his record does not “establish otherwise generally virtuous character” that would justify a lesser sentence.