against a complicated stock promotion, and the youthful secretary of state had admitted receiving campaign contributions—before and after the campaign—from securities dealers whose activities he was supposed to be regulating.
The grand jurors had been concerned also with a bribery case involving a veteran sheriff’s detective who had been caught by the county sheriff stuffing a roll of paper money into his pocket that had just been handed to him by an ex-convict.
Another matter on the grand jurors’ minds was a child-stealing case against a Tennessee couple whohad tentatively adopted an Indianapolis woman’s baby, then fled the state with the child when the mother refused to sign the adoption papers.
It seemed that murder was too mundane for the Marion County grand jury. And yet, the grand jury already had returned more than a hundred indictments in routine crime investigations that fall, many of them for murder.
There was a question of whether the Likens case would ever be heard by the present grand jury. The week before the Likens case did reach them, jury members had attempted to resign in a huff after a judge charged them with “whitewashing” the charges levied against the jail by the
Indianapolis Star.
But the two Criminal Court judges refused to let the jurors resign before the end of the court term, December 31.
The day the grand jury’s investigation of the Likens case began, the Baniszewski family attorney filed a motion for writ of habeas corpus to get Stephanie Baniszewski released on bond.
The attorney, John R. Hammond, in his motion filed on December 3 in Criminal Court, Division 2, contended that the state had no evidence to support a murder charge against Stephanie. Hammond also contended that it was illegal to hold 15-year-old Stephanie in the county jail because that deprived her of her schooling required by the state’s compulsory education law for children under 16.
“How well do you like school?” Judge Saul I. Rabb asked the girl at her hearing four days later.
“Judge,” she said, “if school were a man, I’d marry it.”
She later was transferred to the county Juvenile Center, where she could attend school.
Stephanie showed her confidence of her innocence by waiving immunity from prosecution and testifying before the grand jury. The investigative body, whose hearings are kept secret by state law, also heard from another 15-year-old girl that day, Jenny Fay Likens. Three policemen testified to round out the December 4 grand jury hearing.
Later, Gertrude Baniszewski also asked to be heard by the grand jury. Her testimony was to embarrass her later. Although grand jury testimony normally is secret, there is a provision for its release. It can be read from at trial to show conflicts between a witness’s grand jury testimony and his or her trial testimony.
Grand jury testimony thus can be useful to the state not only for its investigative value, but also for its value in impeaching witnesses and in prosecuting perjury cases. Gertrude Baniszewski found this out the hard way.
There was one slight matter to be disposed of before the grand jury could report on the Likens case. On December 21, Coy Hubbard was bound from Municipal Court Room 6 to the grand jury on a charge of murder.
The grand jury’s final report of the year, on December 30, contained two indictments for first-degree murder, one for second-degree murder, onefor voluntary manslaughter, one for bribery, one for involuntary manslaughter, three for assault and battery with intent to gratify sexual desires, four for assault and battery with intent to kill, seven for rape, one for sodomy, one for aiding an escape, two for aggravated assault and battery, four for larceny, one for forgery, and one for attempted arson.
Conviction of first-degree murder in Indiana carried a sentence of death in the electric chair or life in prison, as determined by the judge and jury. No woman or child had ever been sentenced to death in
The grand jurors had been concerned also with a bribery case involving a veteran sheriff’s detective who had been caught by the county sheriff stuffing a roll of paper money into his pocket that had just been handed to him by an ex-convict.
Another matter on the grand jurors’ minds was a child-stealing case against a Tennessee couple whohad tentatively adopted an Indianapolis woman’s baby, then fled the state with the child when the mother refused to sign the adoption papers.
It seemed that murder was too mundane for the Marion County grand jury. And yet, the grand jury already had returned more than a hundred indictments in routine crime investigations that fall, many of them for murder.
There was a question of whether the Likens case would ever be heard by the present grand jury. The week before the Likens case did reach them, jury members had attempted to resign in a huff after a judge charged them with “whitewashing” the charges levied against the jail by the
Indianapolis Star.
But the two Criminal Court judges refused to let the jurors resign before the end of the court term, December 31.
The day the grand jury’s investigation of the Likens case began, the Baniszewski family attorney filed a motion for writ of habeas corpus to get Stephanie Baniszewski released on bond.
The attorney, John R. Hammond, in his motion filed on December 3 in Criminal Court, Division 2, contended that the state had no evidence to support a murder charge against Stephanie. Hammond also contended that it was illegal to hold 15-year-old Stephanie in the county jail because that deprived her of her schooling required by the state’s compulsory education law for children under 16.
“How well do you like school?” Judge Saul I. Rabb asked the girl at her hearing four days later.
“Judge,” she said, “if school were a man, I’d marry it.”
She later was transferred to the county Juvenile Center, where she could attend school.
Stephanie showed her confidence of her innocence by waiving immunity from prosecution and testifying before the grand jury. The investigative body, whose hearings are kept secret by state law, also heard from another 15-year-old girl that day, Jenny Fay Likens. Three policemen testified to round out the December 4 grand jury hearing.
Later, Gertrude Baniszewski also asked to be heard by the grand jury. Her testimony was to embarrass her later. Although grand jury testimony normally is secret, there is a provision for its release. It can be read from at trial to show conflicts between a witness’s grand jury testimony and his or her trial testimony.
Grand jury testimony thus can be useful to the state not only for its investigative value, but also for its value in impeaching witnesses and in prosecuting perjury cases. Gertrude Baniszewski found this out the hard way.
There was one slight matter to be disposed of before the grand jury could report on the Likens case. On December 21, Coy Hubbard was bound from Municipal Court Room 6 to the grand jury on a charge of murder.
The grand jury’s final report of the year, on December 30, contained two indictments for first-degree murder, one for second-degree murder, onefor voluntary manslaughter, one for bribery, one for involuntary manslaughter, three for assault and battery with intent to gratify sexual desires, four for assault and battery with intent to kill, seven for rape, one for sodomy, one for aiding an escape, two for aggravated assault and battery, four for larceny, one for forgery, and one for attempted arson.
Conviction of first-degree murder in Indiana carried a sentence of death in the electric chair or life in prison, as determined by the judge and jury. No woman or child had ever been sentenced to death in
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