State of Indiana, Appellant-Plaintiff v. Jeremy A. Small, Appellee-Defendant (2026)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

[1] The State appeals the trial court's dismissal of the State's charges against Jeremy Small.¹ The State raises a single issue for our review, namely, whether the trial court erred when it dismissed the State's charges under Indiana Criminal Rule 4(C). We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] In October 2022, the State charged Small with Class A misdemeanor resisting law enforcement and Class C misdemeanor refusal to identify himself. In November, Small timely requested a jury trial on the State's charges, and the court set his trial date for July 12, 2023. The court later continued the misdemeanor proceedings on its own motion.

[3] In October 2023, the State moved to have the misdemeanor charges dismissed without prejudice, which the trial court granted. Later that month, the State refiled its charges against Small along with a charge of Level 6 felony neglect of a dependent. The court set his initial jury trial on the refiled charges for May 2024, but that date was continued several times following numerous requests by Small to do so. The court eventually scheduled Small's jury trial for February 2026.

[4] That month, but prior to the commencement of his trial, Small moved to have the State's charges dismissed under Indiana Criminal Rule 4(C). Following a hearing on Small's motion, the trial court concluded that the State had failed to bring Small to trial in accordance with Rule 4(C)’s 365-day requirement. The court therefore granted Small's motion to dismiss the State's charges.

[5] This appeal ensued.

Standard of Review

[6] On appeal, the State contends that the trial court erred when it granted Small's motion for dismissal under Indiana Criminal Rule 4(C). “We review a trial court's ruling on a Rule 4(C) motion for an abuse of discretion.”² Curtis v. State, 948 N.E.2d 1143, 1149 (Ind. 2011). “A trial court abuses its discretion if its decision is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before the court or if it misapplies the law.” M.D. v. State, 108 N.E.3d 301, 303 (Ind. 2018). However, where the relevant facts underlying a Criminal Rule 4 motion are not in dispute and the issue on appeal is a question of law, our review is de novo. Battering v. State, 150 N.E.3d 597, 600 (Ind. 2020).

Discussion and Decision

[7] Indiana Criminal Rule 4(C) (2024)³ provides:

No person can be held on recognizance or otherwise to answer a criminal charge for a period in aggregate exceeding one year from the date the criminal charge against such defendant is filed, or from the date of the arrest on such charge, whichever is later. Delays caused by a defendant, congestion of the court calendar, or an emergency are excluded from the time period. If a defendant is held beyond the time limit of this section and moves for dismissal, the criminal charge against the defendant must be dismissed. The one-year time limit does not apply to a retrial following a mistrial ․ The trial court must commence the retrial within a reasonable time.

[8] As our Supreme Court has explained:

The broad goal of Indiana's Criminal Rule 4 is to provide functionality to a criminal defendant's fundamental and constitutionally protected right to a speedy trial. Cundiff v. State, 967 N.E.2d 1026, 1027 (Ind. 2012); see also U.S. Const. amend. VI; Ind. Const. art. 1, § 12. It places an affirmative duty on the State to bring the defendant to trial, but at the same time [it] is not intended to be a mechanism for providing defendants a technical means to escape prosecution. Cundiff, 967 N.E.2d at 1028 (citing Curtis[,] 948 N.E.2d [at 1151] and Loyd v. State, 272 Ind. 404, 410, 398 N.E.2d 1260, 1266 (1980)).

Austin v. State, 997 N.E.2d 1027, 1037 (Ind. 2013) (footnote omitted).

[9] And we recently reiterated a defendant's obligation to object in the trial court to an alleged Rule 4(C) violation:

The Indiana Supreme Court has long held that, in order for a defendant to preserve his right to be brought to trial within the one-year period of Rule 4(C), he must “alert the court when a trial date has been established beyond the proscribed limits of the [R]ule.” State ex rel. O'Donnell v. Cass Sup. Ct., 468 N.E.2d 209, 211 (Ind. 1984). In other words, to ensure that the State has met its duty to bring him to trial within one year, the defendant must, within the one-year period, object to the court setting a trial date that is beyond that period. See State v. Larkin, 100 N.E.3d 700, 704 (Ind. 2018). If the defendant does not lodge that objection, the defendant will have “acquiesced” in having his trial occur after the one-year period. Little v. State, 275 Ind. 78, 81, 415 N.E.2d 44, 46 (1981) (“If the defendant sits idly by at a time when the court could yet grant him a trial within the proper period and permits the court, without objection, to set a date beyond that period, he will be deemed to have acquiesced therein.”); see also Vermillion v. State, 719 N.E.2d 1201, 1204 (Ind. 1999) (stating that the failure to timely object under Rule 4(C) is acquiescence “in a later trial date”).

Billingsley v. State, 281 N.E.3d 79, 86-87 (Ind. Ct. App. 2026) (emphases added), trans. denied.

[10] We begin our review of the Rule 4(C) computation here with October 7, 2022. On that date, the State filed its original misdemeanor charges against Small. The State filed those charges one day after Small's arrest. Thus, the State's 365- day clock under Indiana Criminal Rule 4(C) began to run on October 7, 2022. Crim. R. 4(C).

[11] The trial court held Small's initial hearing on October 18. At that hearing, the court set the omnibus date for December 2, 2022, and the court advised Small that a request for a jury trial must be made in writing no later than ten days prior to the omnibus date. But, also at the initial hearing, the court set a “[p]retrial [c]onference” for January 18, 2023. Ex. Vol. 1, p. 5. Following the initial hearing, on November 7, 2022, Small timely requested a jury trial, which the court then set for July 12, 2023.

[12] There is no dispute that the time from October 7, 2022, to November 7, 2022, counted against the State's 365 days. See Appellant's Br. at 16. There were thirty-one days in that timeframe. Thus, as of November 7, 2022, the State had 334 days remaining under Rule 4(C) to bring Small to trial.

[13] But the parties dispute the Rule 4(C) significance of Small's November 7 jury-trial request. The State notes that the omnibus date in a misdemeanor case “is” the initial trial date as a matter of law. Ind. Code § 35-36-8-1(c)(3) (stating that, for persons charged only with misdemeanors, “[t]he omnibus date ․ is the trial date”). Thus, the State continues, Small's request for a jury trial caused a delay that is attributable to him and is excluded from the State's time under Rule 4(C). See Stephenson v. State, 742 N.E.2d 463, 488 (Ind. 2001) (stating, prior to the 2024 amendments to Criminal Rule 4, that “the elapsed period between [a defendant's] motion for a continuance and the new trial date is generally” the time that is excluded from the State's Rule 4 obligations). Small, meanwhile, argues that his request for a jury trial was not a request for the trial court to set a different trial date and did not require the trial court to set a different trial date.

[14] We cannot say on this record that Small's jury-trial request in fact caused any delay in the misdemeanor proceedings. Although the trial court set the omnibus date for December 2, at that same time it set the omnibus date the court also set a pretrial conference for January 18, 2023. Ex. Vol. 1, p. 5. The State provides no explanation for how the trial court might have intended to hold a trial in December and also hold a pretrial conference the following January.

[15] We therefore conclude that, Indiana Code section 35-36-8-1(c)(3) notwithstanding, the record here is ambiguous as to whether any trial date had in fact been set at the time Small filed his request for a jury trial. The affirmative burden to bring Small to trial within Rule 4’s requirements therefore remained on the State, and the State could have either asked the court to clarify the CCS or taken the risk of having the ambiguity count against its Rule 4 obligations. See Cundiff, 967 N.E.2d at 1028. The State did not seek to have the record clarified. We therefore cannot say that any delay in fact resulted from Small's jury-trial request. We conclude that the time from November 7, 2022, forward counted against the State's Rule 4(C) time.

[16] On June 27, 2023, the court held a pretrial hearing. At that hearing, the court canceled the July 12 jury trial date and rescheduled Small's jury trial for October 19. The CCS in the misdemeanor case states that the rescheduling of the jury trial date was on the trial court's “[o]wn [m]otion.” Ex. Vol. 1, p. 8.⁴ Accordingly, the State's Rule 4(C) clock stopped running on June 27, 2023. See Crim. R. 4(C). The time from November 7, 2022, to June 27, 2023, counts as 232 days against the State's Rule 4(C) time, which left the State with 102 days to bring Small to trial as of June 27, 2023.

[17] On October 5, 2023, the State filed a motion to dismiss its charges against Small without prejudice, which the trial court granted. As a matter of law, this tolled the State's Rule 4(C) time. See, e.g., Sweeney v. State, 704 N.E.2d 86, 101 (Ind. 1998) (“Dismissing and refiling charges does not reset the speedy trial clock—it merely tolls it for the actual days between dismissal and refiling.”). On October 19, the State refiled its charges, which now included a count of Level 6 felony neglect of a dependent. The refiling of the charges on October 19 restarted the State's Rule 4(C) clock. Id. One-hundred and two days after October 19 would have been January 28, 2024.

[18] However, after an initial hearing on the State's new charges in November, the trial court set Small's jury trial for May 15, 2024, well past the State's 365-day requirement under Rule 4(C). But Small did not object to that trial date. Instead, in March 2024, he moved for a continuance, which the trial court granted, resetting his trial for October. In late September, the trial court permitted Small's counsel to withdraw his appearance, which likewise required the court to continue Small's trial first to January 2025 and then to June 2025. In May, the court, on its own motion, again rescheduled Small's trial, this time to July 2025. And Small then requested yet another continuance, which the court granted, rescheduling his trial to January 2026 and then (upon another request) to February.

[19] On February 17, 2026, Small filed his motion for dismissal under Rule 4(C). But this was too late. In November 2023, the trial court set a May 2024 trial date on the State's refiled charges. The setting of that date occurred within the one-year period, and the May 2024 trial date was beyond the one-year period. It was therefore within that timeframe that Small was required to “alert the court” that a trial date had been set beyond the limits of Rule 4(C). Billingsley, 281 N.E.3d at 86 (quoting State ex rel. O'Donnell, 468 N.E.2d at 211). As Small did not lodge that objection, as a matter of law he acquiesced in having his trial occur after the one-year period. Id. at 86-87.

[20] Accordingly, the trial court erred when it granted Small's motion to dismiss. We therefore reverse the trial court's judgment and remand for further proceedings.

[21] Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

FOOTNOTES

1.   The State's appeal is authorized by Indiana Code section 35-38-4-2(a)(2) (2026), which grants the State the right to appeal following an order that granted a motion to discharge a defendant before trial. As our potential reversal of the order here would reinstate charges for which no jeopardy has yet attached, we conclude the State has standing under the Indiana Constitution to prosecute this appeal. Cf. State v. Archer, ___ N.E.3d ___, No. 25A-CR-3197 (Ind. Ct. App. Oct. 14, 2026) (expressing concern over the State's constitutional standing to bring an appeal under Indiana Code section 35-38-4-2(a)(4) following an acquittal).

2.   Contrary to the State's suggestion in its brief to our Court, the trial court here did not enter any findings of fact in support of its order dismissing the State's charges.

3.   The Indiana Supreme Court amended Criminal Rule 4 effective January 1, 2024, and the State's proceedings against Small overlap with that effective date. But, at least with respect to Rule 4(C)’s operative terms, those amendments are irrelevant to this appeal, and for ease of reference we use the current language of Rule 4(C).

4.   The State suggests that Small caused this delay. The CCS says that the delay was on the court's “[o]wn [m]otion” and that, “[b]y request of Defense, this matter is now set for Final Pretrial Conference on September 18, 2023 at 1:00 p.m.” Ex. Vol. 1, pp. 7-8. We read those entries together to say that, after the court had rescheduled Small's jury trial, he requested a specific final pretrial conference date or time.

Mathias, Judge.

Pyle, J., and Weissmann, J., concur.