J.H., Appellant-Respondent v. STATE (2026)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] J.H. appeals the juvenile court's determination that he was a delinquent child for committing dangerous possession of a firearm, a Class A misdemeanor. J.H. contends that the adjudication must be set aside because a police officer improperly seized the firearm in violation of his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. J.H. also argues that the in-court identification testimony was tainted as a result of this impermissible search and seizure and should have been excluded.

[2] We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[3] On June 22, 2025, at approximately 11:30 p.m., fifteen-year-old J.H. was walking through a crowd on Georgia Street in Indianapolis. A large group had assembled downtown to watch the NBA's final game at various bars, restaurants, and outdoor venues. Following the basketball game, much of the crowd flowed out into the streets.

[4] Throughout the evening, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) officers stopped and briefly questioned several individuals who were carrying firearms. Once their identity was confirmed and it was determined that they were lawfully in possession of a firearm, they were released. On the other hand, if any of those individuals had violated the law for possessing a firearm, they were arrested.

[5] At some point, IMPD officer Michael Skeens—who was assigned as the squad sergeant for IMPD's event response and crowd control team—noticed J.H., who was wearing a gray hoodie with the hood up and a winter mask that covered his nose and mouth. J.H. was walking through the crowd with his right hand under his left armpit. Officer Skeens believed that J.H.’s clothing was “suspicious” because it was over eighty degrees and humid outside. Transcript Vol. II at 20.

[6] When Officer Skeens approached, J.H. turned away. At that point, Officer Skeens noticed an object protruding from the back of J.H.’s sweatshirt that he believed was a handgun with an extended magazine. Although the weapon was under J.H.’s sweatshirt, Officer Skeens was able to observe the “imprint” of a gun through J.H.’s clothing. Id. at 12-13.

[7] Officer Skeens walked up behind J.H., placed his left hand on the gun to secure it, took hold of J.H.’s right hand, and placed it behind his back. Based on training and experience, Officer Skeens thought it necessary to take control of the gun and J.H.—who had easy access to the gun—as quickly as possible to ensure his, J.H.’s, and the crowd's safety.

[8] Police officers recovered a Glock handgun with two 40 caliber magazines with 26 live rounds from J.H. One of the magazines was “very extended” that could hold twenty-two rounds of ammunition. Id. at 26. After identifying J.H. and learning that he was fifteen years old, the officers transported him to the police station.

[9] On June 23, 2025, the State filed a petition alleging that J.H. was a delinquent child for committing dangerous possession of a firearm, a class A misdemeanor. J.H. moved to suppress the admission of the firearm into evidence, arguing that its seizure violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution.

[10] J.H. maintained that the firearm was inadmissible because there was nothing to suggest that he was a juvenile at the time of the seizure, and that wearing heavy clothing did not result in an immediate suspicion of criminal activity. J.H. further claimed that because he was improperly arrested, Officer Skeens's in-court identification of him was tainted and should also be suppressed.

[11] During the hearing, Officer Skeens explained:

Guns, especially in a dynamic situation when you're trying to take someone into custody or detain them, which I was detaining [J.H.] at the time, is to ensure that the gun doesn't go off. It doesn't either intentionally or unintentionally. It doesn't fall and you lose track of it. It doesn't get taken by somebody else. There's a myriad of reasons and a lot of things that you cannot control unless you have control of that weapon.

Id. at 21.

[12] The State argued that law enforcement concerns in a large crowd, community safety, and the safety of law enforcement justified J.H.’s stop and the seizure of the firearm. The State also argued that the seizure was only a brief intrusion on J.H.’s liberty that was necessary to confirm—or dispel—Officer Skeens's concern that criminal activity was afoot as part of law enforcement's caretaking function in a large crowd. For these reasons, the State asserted that admitting the firearm into evidence and Officer Skeens's in-court identification of J.H. was proper.

[13] The juvenile court denied J.H.’s motion to suppress and determined that

[U]nder the totality of the circumstances the police officer had ․ reasonable and articulable facts as to why he believed criminal activity may have been afoot in that big of a crowd with full sweatshirt and face covering and a firearm on his person. I understand why the police officer did what he did, and I think that was reasonable under the circumstances.

Id. at 23-24.

[14] After hearing the evidence at the fact-finding hearing, the juvenile court adjudicated J.H. delinquent.

[15] J.H. now appeals.

Standard of Review

[16] This court reviews de novo a ruling on the constitutionality of a search or seizure, but we give deference to a trial court's determination of the facts, which will not be overturned unless clearly erroneous. See, e.g., Carpenter v. State, 18 N.E.3d 998, 1001 (Ind. 2014) (holding that the ultimate determination of the constitutionality of a search or seizure is a question of law that we consider de novo).

Discussion and Decision

[17] J.H. argues that the juvenile court erred in admitting the firearm into evidence at the delinquency hearing. J.H. argues that Officer Skeens's “seize first tactics” violated his constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. Appellant's Brief at 9.

I. Fourth Amendment

[18] The Fourth Amendment provides that

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

U.S. Const. amend. IV.

[19] The fundamental purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to protect the legitimate expectations of privacy that citizens possess in their persons, homes, and belongings. State v. Parrott, 69 N.E.3d 535, 541 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017), trans. denied. And those protections have been extended to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. J.B. v. State, 30 N.E.3d 51, 54 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015).

[20] In general, evidence obtained pursuant to an unlawful seizure must be excluded under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. Clark v. State, 994 N.E.2d 252, 266 (Ind. 2013). “This extension of the exclusionary rule bars evidence directly obtained by the illegal search or seizure as well as evidence derivatively gained as a result of information learned or leads obtained during that same search or seizure.” Id. The touchstone of a Fourth Amendment analysis “is always ‘the reasonableness in all the circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a citizen's personal security.’ ” Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 108-09 (1977) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 (1968)). A warrantless seizure is per se unreasonable, and the State bears the burden to show that one of the well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement applies. Jacobs v. State, 76 N.E.3d 846, 850 (Ind. 2017).

[21] Here, it is undisputed that J.H.’s encounter with Officer Skeens was not consensual. Thus, the Fourth Amendment was implicated. See id. Although Officer Skeens may have lacked probable cause to arrest J.H. when he was initially detained, the Terry Court established the rule that the police, without a warrant or probable cause, can briefly detain a person for investigatory purposes based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Armfield v. State, 918 N.E.2d 316, 319 (Ind. 2009) (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 30). “Reasonable suspicion is satisfied where the facts known to the officer at the moment of the stop, together with the reasonable inferences arising from such facts, would cause an ordinarily prudent person to believe that criminal activity has occurred or is about to occur.” Reinhart v. State, 930 N.E.2d 42, 45 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010).

[22] Reasonable suspicion requires “more than mere hunches or unparticularized suspicions.” Finger v. State, 799 N.E.2d 528, 534 (Ind. 2003). That is, a police officer must be able to point to specific facts giving rise to “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” Id. The reasonable suspicion inquiry is highly fact-sensitive and is determined on a case-by-case basis. Id. at 533. The existence of reasonable suspicion is determined by examining the totality of the circumstances, and such consideration “necessarily includes a determination of whether the defendant's own actions were suspicious.” Crabtree v. State, 762 N.E.2d 241, 246 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002). And in accordance with Terry, a police officer may “temporarily freeze the situation in order to make an investigative inquiry.” Billingsley v. State, 980 N.E.2d 402, 406 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012), trans. denied.

[23] Here, Officer Skeens observed J.H. dressed in a manner that was wholly inappropriate for the weather, and J.H. intentionally hid his face in a manner that prevented anyone from seeing anything but his eyes and part of his forehead. J.H. had his right hand tucked under his left armpit, and he turned away and changed his course as Officer Skeens approached. At that time, it became apparent to Officer Skeens that J.H. was holding a handgun with an extended magazine underneath his sweatshirt. As the Terry Court stated, “[i]t would have been poor police work indeed” for the officers ․ “to have failed to investigate this behavior further.” 392 U.S. at 23. Similarly, it would have been poor police work for Officer Skeens in these circumstances not to have investigated further, given the crowd and potential for serious harm.

[24] We conclude that it was reasonable for Officer Skeens to stop J.H., immediately secure the weapon, and detain J.H. for investigatory purposes in light of the reasonable suspicion that criminal activity may be afoot. A very large crowd had assembled downtown and Officer Skeens—based on his training and experience as a police officer—needed to ensure that the gun did not fire either intentionally or unintentionally. Officer Skeens also needed to make certain that he did not lose track of the gun or risk that it would be taken by somebody else. J.H. has failed to show that his rights were violated under the Fourth Amendment, and the juvenile court properly admitted the firearm into evidence at the fact-finding hearing.

II. The Indiana Constitution

[25] J.H. also claims that his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure was violated under Article 1, Section 11. Specifically, J.H. asserts that the Indiana Constitution's liberal “discrete and supplementary protections” establish that his rights were violated. Appellant's Brief at 10.

[26] Article 1, Section 11 “safeguards the ‘right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search or seizure.’ ” Watkins v. State, 85 N.E.3d 597, 600 (Ind. 2017). “Although its text mirrors the federal Fourth Amendment, we interpret Article 1, § 11 of our Indiana Constitution separately and independently.” Robinson v. State, 5 N.E.3d 362, 368 (Ind. 2014).

[27] The legality of a governmental search under the Indiana Constitution turns on an evaluation of the reasonableness of the police conduct under the totality of the circumstances. Litchfield v. State, 824 N.E.2d 356, 359 (Ind. 2005). “[T]he totality of the circumstances requires consideration of both the degree of intrusion into the subject's ordinary activities and the basis upon which the officer selected the subject of the search or seizure.” Id. at 360. Reasonableness of a search or seizure turns on the “balance of: 1) the degree of concern, suspicion, or knowledge that a violation has occurred, 2) the degree of intrusion the method of the search or seizure imposes on the citizen's ordinary activities, and 3) the extent of law enforcement needs.” Id. at 361.

[28] When evaluating the degree of concern, “we consider all the information available to the officer at the time of the search or seizure.” Ramirez v. State, 174 N.E.3d 181, 191 (Ind. 2021). When evaluating the degree of intrusion, “we evaluate this factor from the defendant's perspective” and “consider the intrusion into both a defendant's physical movements and privacy, focusing on how officers conducted the search or seizure.” Id. at 192.

[29] With respect to the degree of concern, suspicion, or knowledge that a violation had occurred, our Supreme Court has held that detentions to investigate possible future criminal activity are reasonable under Article 1, § 11. See, e.g., State v. Cunningham, 26 N.E.3d 21, 26 (Ind. 2015) (“we have held that Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution likewise ‘permits police to stop and briefly detain a motorist if the officer reasonably suspects that the motorist is engaged in, or about to engage in, illegal activity,’ including a traffic violation”) (quoting Mitchell v. State, 745 N.E.2d 775, 787 (Ind. 2001)); Mitchell, 745 N.E.2d at 786 (“a police stop and brief detention of a motorist is reasonable and permitted under Section 11 if the officer reasonably suspects that the motorist is engaged in, or about to engage in, illegal activity.”). Here, the degree of concern or suspicion that J.H. was carrying a firearm and that criminal activity may be afoot was high, given the totality of the circumstances discussed above.

[30] As for the second Litchfield factor, Officer Skeens's conduct of detaining J.H. and securing his weapon in a crowd of people was certainly intrusive. On the other hand, the intrusion is offset by the high degree of concern and the significant law enforcement needs in accordance with the third Litchfield factor. To be sure, IMPD was tasked with keeping a large downtown crowd safe. And preventing violence from occurring is a crucial part of law enforcement's caretaking function. See, e.g., Saffold v. State, 938 N.E.2d 837, 840 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010) (observing that in determining reasonableness under Section 11, Indiana citizens are concerned with safety, security, and protection from crime. And the reasonableness under the totality of circumstances may include consideration of police officer safety) (internal citation omitted), trans. denied.

[31] When considering all three factors in Litchfield and the circumstances here, we conclude that the balance of those factors weighs in favor of the reasonableness of the stop and detention of J.H. Hence, there was no violation under Article 1 § 11. And because we have determined that J.H.’s rights were not violated under the Fourth Amendment or under the Indiana Constitution, his argument that Officer Skeens's in-court identification testimony should have been excluded as the result of those alleged violations also fails.

[32] Judgment affirmed.

Altice, Judge.

Brown, J. and DeBoer, J., concur.