WALKER v. STATE (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] Following a jury trial, Michelle Walker was convicted of Level 5 felony battery resulting in bodily injury to a public safety official,¹ Level 6 felony intimidation,² and Class B misdemeanor public intoxication.³ Walker appeals her battery conviction, raising one question for our review: Did the trial court err in refusing to give her tendered self-defense instruction? We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] Evansville Police were dispatched to a gas station where a caller had reported “a female passed out in the women's restroom and they were unable to wake her.” Tr. Vol. 2 at 111. Two officers located Walker unconscious in a bathroom stall with an open can of alcohol nearby. She woke up when they shouted several times and shook the door of the stall. She was “erratic and had some slurred speech” and when asked to stand up, “she was unsteady with her balance.” Id. The officers helped her outside where firefighters checked her vitals and medically cleared her.

[3] The officers did not feel Walker “was safe to ․ walk anywhere else based on the time of the night and the weather was cold and rainy.” Id. at 112. They decided to charge her with public intoxication, and she was transported to jail. Officer Garrett VanFleet explained it is standard to search a person once at the jail and “ask them for any piercings, hair ties, anything like that, ․ just to take it off them so they can't use them to harm themselves while they're in the holding cell.” Id. Officer VanFleet asked Walker for an item and “she quickly put it toward [his] face[.]” Id. at 112–13. Sergeant Samuel Sedoris, the booking officer at the jail, saw the exchange and said “it looked [like] she either poked him in the face or was in his face.” Id. at 123. Officer VanFleet, fearing Walker “may try to strike [him],” ordered her not to do that again. Id. at 113. Walker “became verbally combative” and refused to sit down when ordered to do so. Id. Officer VanFleet gained control of Walker's hands and Walker attempted to bite his left arm. Sergeant Sedoris offered assistance and they “took her to the ground.” Id. at 123. As Sergeant Sedoris was putting one of Walker's hands behind her back, Walker “started digging her hands into [Sergeant Sedoris’] palm,” causing him pain. Id. Sergeant Sedoris told Walker to stop, but she was “[u]ncooperative[;] [a]ggressive[; and] confrontational,” and made statements he perceived as threats to his kids. Id. Walker was placed in a restraint chair and booked without further incident.

[4] The State charged Walker with battery resulting in bodily injury to Sergeant Sedoris, intimidation, and public intoxication. The trial court appointed counsel for Walker at the initial hearing. At a review hearing about a week before Walker's scheduled jury trial, the trial court granted Walker's request to represent herself.

[5] Walker testified on her own behalf. Describing her interaction with Sergeant Sedoris as part of a long, wide-ranging narrative, she said:

[W]hen I was thrown onto the ground and restrained, um, Officer Sedoris said that our hands could've been entangled and that is what happened because I didn't even know that that had occurred that our hands were tangling up and that my nails, I guess, he says that my nails somehow touched him which I had no knowledge of․ I did not knowingly or intentionally touch anybody in any type of way.

Id. at 142–43.

[6] Walker submitted proposed final instructions to the court. Her written proposed instructions are not in the record, but the court had the following discussion with Walker about a self-defense instruction:

The Court: ․ I have reviewed the ones you've submitted, ma'am, and I do not feel they are appropriate in this case. So, they will not be given. Specifically, the one about resisting, using force to resist an illegal arrest. There's no evidence in this case that the officers were acting illegally. So, that is not going to be given․

* * * 

[Walker]: This says a person is justified in using reasonable force against a public servant if the person reasonably believes the force is necessary to protect a person or a third person from what that person reasonably believes to be imminent use of unlawful force.

The Court: Yeah. There is no evidence that the officers used unlawful force.

Id. at 145. The trial court did not instruct the jury as to self-defense, and the jury found Walker guilty as charged.

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to instruct the jury on self-defense.

[7] We review a trial court's decision to give or refuse a jury instruction for abuse of discretion. Hernandez v. State, 45 N.E.3d 373, 376 (Ind. 2015). We consider whether the instruction correctly states the law, is supported by the evidence, and is covered in substance by the other jury instructions. McCowan v. State, 27 N.E.3d 760, 763-64 (Ind. 2015). We reverse only if the appellant shows the instructional error prejudiced her substantial rights. Hernandez, 45 N.E.3d at 376.

[8] A defendant can raise self-defense as a justification for an otherwise criminal act. Larkin v. State, 173 N.E.3d 662, 670 (Ind. 2021). Self-defense is an affirmative defense of justification; in other words, the defense admits the facts of the crime occurred but contends the acts were justified. Moon v. State, 823 N.E.2d 710, 716 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005), trans. denied. Whether a criminal defendant acted in self-defense is generally a question of fact for the jury. Taylor v. State, 710 N.E.2d 921, 924 (Ind. 1999). A criminal defendant is therefore entitled to have the jury instructed on self-defense even if the evidence is weak or inconsistent, as long as the evidence has some probative value. See Hernandez, 45 N.E.3d at 376 (noting a defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on “any theory or defense which has some foundation in the evidence”) (quoting Toops v. State, 643 N.E.2d 387, 389 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994)).

[9] Walker was charged with battery for knowingly or intentionally touching Sergeant Sedoris, a public safety official,⁴ in a rude, insolent, or angry manner “by digging her fingernails into [his] skin” while he was engaged in the execution of his official duties, causing bodily injury. Appellant's App. Vol. 2 at 14. The sole issue here is whether Walker's proposed self-defense instruction was supported by the evidence.

[10] “A person is justified in using reasonable force against a public servant[⁵ ] if the person reasonably believes the force is necessary to ․ protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force[.]” I.C. § 35-41-3-2(i)(1). The phrase “reasonably believes” includes both subjective belief that use of force was necessary and that such actual belief was one that a reasonable person would have under the circumstances. See Passarelli v. State, 201 N.E.3d 271, 276 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023), trans. denied.

[11] Walker claims her defense at trial “was that she was justified in using force because the officers’ use of force was excessive and unlawful.” Appellant's Br. at 11. And she argues her testimony constituted “at least a scintilla of evidence” to support giving a self-defense instruction. Id. at 12. But at no point in Walker's eight pages of narrative testimony did she say she used force against Sergeant Sedoris to protect herself—in fact, she specifically denied using force at all. Walker testified she “had no knowledge” her nails touched Sergeant Sedoris's hand and “did not knowingly or intentionally touch anybody in any type of way.” Tr. Vol. 2 at 142–43. In other words, Walker denied committing battery, rather than admitting to the battery but claiming self-defense. Consequently, a self-defense instruction was not warranted because there was no evidence in the record to support such an instruction.

Conclusion

[12] The trial court did not abuse its discretion in instructing the jury.

[13] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Ind. Code §§ 35-42-2-1(c)(1), (g)(5)(A) (2023).

2.   I.C. § 35-45-2-1(a)(2), (b)(1) (2022).

3.   I.C. § 7.1-5-1-3(a)(3) (2012).

4.   “Public safety official” includes “a law enforcement officer.” I.C. § 35–42–2–1(a)(1).

5.   “Public servant” also includes a law enforcement officer. See I.C. §§ 35-41-3-2(b); 35-31.5-2-185.

Kenworthy, Judge.

Mathias, J., and Brown, J., concur.