Jeffrey A. Weisheit v. State of Indiana, 2015 Ind. LEXIS 133

Weisheit was convicted of two counts of murder and arson resulting in serious bodily injury, and was sentenced to death following a jury’s recommendation.
The murders involved eight-year-old Alyssa Lynch and five-year-old Caleb Lynch; the arson was committed at Weisheit’s Evansville home where the children and their mother lived with Weisheit.
Weisheit allegedly had planned harm to Lisa, left the home the night of the fire, and attempted to flee; he engaged in alarming conduct before and during the incident and fled from police afterward.
At the penalty phase, Weisheit sought to introduce expert testimony from a prison- administration specialist to argue he could be safely housed for life, which the court refused; the trial record reflects extensive pretrial and trial proceedings, including multiple juror-examination events.
On direct appeal, Weisheit challenged multiple aspects including sufficiency of the arson and murder evidence, juror-for-cause issues, a note placed in the jury room, suppression of statements to police, and the weighing of mitigating circumstances.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of prison-administration testimony as mitigation	Weisheit argues the expert could predict safe long-term imprisonment	State contends testimony is speculative and not foundationed	Court did not abuse discretion; testimony was speculative and not admissible as future-behavior evidence
Sufficiency of arson causing serious bodily injury	Evidence supports guilt by inference from multiple independent facts	Guilt rests on inference chain; no direct proof of starting the fire	Sufficient evidence supports arson conviction beyond reasonable doubt
Exhaustion rule and denial of for-cause juror dismissals	Exhaustion of peremptories followed; for-cause denial prejudiced Weisheit	Oswalt v. State governs; no reversible error shown	No reversible error; exhaustion rule not satisfied to vacate judgment
Mistrial request due to juror note and related juror communications	Note could taint jurors and require mistrial	Note harmless; jurors unrevealed influence and juror removed	Trial court properly denied mistrial; note harmless and not prejudicial
Mitigating factors weighed in sentencing	Mitigators ignored; sentence should be vacated or remanded	Court properly weighed aggravators against mitigators; no remand warranted	Death sentence affirmed; proper consideration of mitigators and alignment with sentencing standards

Wilkes v. State, 917 N.E.2d 690 (Ind. 2009) (relevance of evidence of positive adjustment to incarceration in mitigation)
Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 (U.S. 1986) (requires consideration of evidence of positive adjustment to prison life)
Oswalt v. State, 19 N.E.3d 241 (Ind. 2014) (exhaustion rule for for-cause challenges and peremptory challenges)
Ramirez v. State, 7 N.E.3d 933 (Ind. 2014) (for-cause/prejudice analysis in juror communications)
Pittman v. State, 885 N.E.2d 1246 (Ind. 2008) (jury not required to list mitigating reasons; court determines weight)
Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385 (U.S. 1978) (comparison on voluntariness of statements; caution against coercive interrogation)
Barton v. State, 490 N.E.2d 317 (Ind. 1986) (circumstantial evidence in arson conviction)
Landress v. State, 600 N.E.2d 938 (Ind. 1992) (inference-based sufficiency standards; risk of inference chaining)
Meehan v. State, 7 N.E.3d 255 (Ind. 2014) (sufficiency review for murder convictions; Meehan cited for standard)
Drane v. State, 867 N.E.2d 144 (Ind. 2007) (standard for sufficiency of evidence and appellate review)