Gary Oswalt v. State of Indiana, 995 N.E.2d 685

Oswalt appeals his convictions for two Class A child-molesting felonies, one Class D child solicitation, and five Class D counts of possession of child pornography; he challenges jury-voir-dire decisions and conviction-on-several-Counts issues.
J.B., the child-victim, was Oswalt’s stepdaughter who was abused over about seven years beginning when she was a child.
The State charged Counts I-II (A felonies), Count III (C felony), Count IV (D felony) and later added Counts V–IX (D felonies); the court granted amendments.
During voir dire, multiple jurors (notably Jurors 7, 13, and 28) raised potential bias; Oswalt sought to strike for cause but the court denied some motions and he used peremptories.
The court diverged on limiting peremptories as the defense exhausted options; a final juror (No. 28) seated on the jury.
The trial court convicted Oswalt and sentenced him to an aggregate term of 84 years with 50 years executed and 34 years on probation, with Counts V–IX running concurrent and I, II, IV consecutive to those.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying for-cause dismissals of jurors	Oswalt asserts Jurors 7 and 13 should have been struck for cause; Juror 28 sat after cause denied	Court acted within discretion; jurors could remain impartial	No reversible error; no abuse of discretion
Whether the court abused its discretion in denying dismissal of five Counts of possession of child pornography	Statute of limitations may bar some counts; dates alleged insufficient	Counts alleged timely within limits; evidence showed knowledge/possession	No abuse of discretion; counts timely within limits
Whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain five possession-of-child-pornography convictions	Images and video on Oswalt’s laptop within limitations period	Defendant argues lack of proof of knowledge and post-limit possession	Evidence adequate; jury could find knowing possession within period
Whether Oswalt was denied a fair trial due to the possession charges	Possession charges permeated trial; severance warranted	Waived; severance not required; no fundamental error	Waiver but severance not required; no reversible error
Whether Oswalt’s sentence is inappropriate under Appellate Rule 7(B)	Aggravating factors; prolonged abuse of trust justify long term	Mitigating factors and lack of prior criminal history weighed	Not inappropriate; affirmed overall sentence

Ward v. State, 903 N.E.2d 946 (Ind. 2009) (for-cause challenge focus on jurors who sat; Ross reasoning applied in Indiana)
Whiting v. State, 969 N.E.2d 24 (Ind. 2012) (preservation of claims via exhaustion of peremptories; standard of review)
Merritt v. Evansville-Vanderburgh Sch. Corp., 765 N.E.2d 1232 (Ind. 2002) (exhaustion of peremptory challenges to preserve for appeal)
Robinson v. State, 453 N.E.2d 280 (Ind. 1983) (exhaustion rule for preserving for-cause error)
Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81 (1988) (peremptory challenges do not violate constitutional right if jurors are impartial)
Lannan v. State, 600 N.E.2d 1334 (Ind. 1992) (evidence-rule analysis of uncharged acts; relevance to severance not central here)
Willner v. State, 602 N.E.2d 507 (Ind. 1992) (statutory requirement to plead within limitations period)