## Facts

- Arthur C. Whitt fatally shot Clyde Nichols, Jr., a former Washington County sheriff, outside church services in Salem, Indiana on April 1, 1984.
- Witnesses subdued Whitt at the scene, and he was taken into custody.
- Whitt had prior conflicts with Nichols and blamed Nichols for many of his personal and legal problems.
- After Whitt entered an insanity-related plea, three court-appointed psychiatrists evaluated him; each testified he had a mental illness, with diagnoses including schizophrenia and paranoid schizophrenia.
- Whitt had multiple prior hospitalizations in state and veterans’ facilities associated with behavior indicating mental illness.
- After Whitt requested counsel at an initial appearance, police attempted to interrogate him at the county jail; during Miranda warnings, Whitt interjected about whether the death penalty would be sought and stated he was justified.
- At trial, the defense moved for a mistrial after the prosecution attempted to elicit testimony about Whitt’s post-arrest statements; the trial court sustained objections to certain questions but denied a mistrial.
- A jury found Whitt “guilty of murder but mentally ill” and recommended against the death penalty; the judge imposed a 60-year sentence (the statutory maximum).

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by denying a mistrial based on prosecutorial questioning that allegedly violated Whitt’s privilege against self-incrimination by referencing statements after he had requested counsel.
2. Whether imposing the maximum 60-year sentence for murder was an abuse of discretion or otherwise improper where the jury found Whitt “guilty but mentally ill” and recommended against the death penalty.

## Decision

- The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence.
- The court held the trial court did not err in denying a mistrial because sustained objections and the context of what reached the jury did not place Whitt in grave peril requiring the extreme remedy of mistrial.
- The court upheld the 60-year sentence as within statutory limits and not manifestly unreasonable, despite the “guilty but mentally ill” verdict.

## Legal Principles

- A mistrial is an extraordinary remedy; denial will be reversed only when the defendant is placed in grave peril that cannot be cured by other measures, and trial courts receive substantial deference in assessing prejudice.
- When potentially improper questioning concerns post-arrest statements, the prompt sustaining of objections and the limited or non-prejudicial nature of what is presented to the jury may defeat a claim of reversible error.
- A “guilty but mentally ill” verdict does not reduce the statutory sentencing range for the offense; mental illness is a mitigating consideration but does not bar the maximum sentence if aggravating circumstances and the nature of the offense justify it.
- A sentence within statutory limits is reviewed for abuse of discretion/manifest unreasonableness in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Whitt’s murder-but-mentally-ill conviction and 60-year sentence, holding that the trial court’s handling of the challenged questioning did not warrant a mistrial and that mental illness, while relevant to mitigation, did not preclude a maximum sentence for an aggravated public killing.


Whitt v. State, 497 N.E.2d 1059 (Ind. 1986)