Shane Keller v. State of Indiana, 47 N.E.3d 1205

Background

Stone Keller was convicted by a jury of eight felonies for stealing from a Washington County farm, including two counts of burglary for breaking into an old farmhouse.
The farmhouse was unoccupied but being renovated by Jeremy Hardwick, who stored most family belongings there and planned to move in "in the near future."
Burglary was a Class C felony but was enhanced to Class B if the building broken into was a "dwelling."
The trial court instructed the jury with the statutory definition of "dwelling" and added: "Any such place where a person keeps personal items with the intent to reside in the near future is considered a dwelling."
Keller appealed, arguing the additional sentence mischaracterized the statutory definition, invaded the jury’s province, and misled the jury. The Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer and addressed only the instructional-error issue.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the jury instruction’s additional sentence defining “dwelling” was proper	Instruction was grounded in precedent (White) and properly guided the jury	The added sentence expanded statutory definition, emphasized particular facts, invaded jury province, and misled jury	The additional sentence was erroneous; it invaded the jury’s province and misled jurors; convictions reduced from Class B to Class C and remanded for resentencing
Whether appellate-case language (sufficiency holdings) may be incorporated into jury instructions	Case law can inform instructions; trial courts have broad discretion	Appellate sufficiency holdings are inappropriate as jury-instruction language because they single out factual examples and constrain jury fact-finding	The Court held appellate sufficiency holdings (like White) are not proper to embed as mandatory examples in jury instructions when they emphasize specific facts
Whether the instructional error was harmless	State did not argue harmlessness	Keller argued instruction likely affected verdict	Court presumed error affected verdict and reversed enhancement (no harmless-error finding)
Whether the Court of Appeals’ sufficiency analysis should control here	State asked this Court to review sufficiency analysis	Keller did not raise sufficiency before this Court	The Supreme Court declined to address sufficiency-of-the-evidence and limited its ruling to instructional error; other convictions summarily affirmed

Key Cases Cited

White v. State, 846 N.E.2d 1026 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006) (held that a house where personal items were stored and the occupant intended to move in soon qualified as a "dwelling" in a sufficiency context)
Ludy v. State, 784 N.E.2d 459 (Ind. 2003) (instructions that emphasize a particular evidentiary fact or phase of the case invade the jury’s province)
Fry v. State, 447 N.E.2d 569 (Ind. 1983) (warning against instructions that encourage jurors to ignore relevant evidence)
Bradley v. State, 867 N.E.2d 1282 (Ind. 2007) (remedy directing modification of conviction class where an instruction affected only an element that produced enhancement)
McCowan v. State, 27 N.E.3d 760 (Ind. 2015) (trial courts retain broad discretion in drafting jury instructions)