News Archive

A Madison County man who was convicted of battery argues that trial court errors prevented him from presenting arguments that he acted in self-defense. The case, Peter Griffith v. State of Indiana, was heard by the Indiana Supreme Court March 11.

At issue is the trial court decision that prevented the defense attorney from recalling a witness to address inconsistencies in previous statements. The case is the subject of a story in the Indiana Lawyer’s March 25 edition.

“Simply because a defense attorney makes a mistake, are we going to hold that against the defendant?” Boyne said in the news story. “The reality of being a trial lawyer is that you’re not anticipating every avenue that may help you.”

Professor Boyne is a former prosecuting attorney and practiced for several years as a defense attorney before pursuing her career in academia. She is a scholar of comparative law who has previously presented her work at Yale University, the University of Virginia, and Washington & Lee's School of Law, as well as in Austria, Germany, and England. Professor Boyne teaches a seminar in Comparative National Security Law at IU McKinney and serves as co-chair of the Global Crisis Leadership Forum. She is one of the founding members of the Comparative Law Professors blog. Her latest book, The German Prosecution Service: Guardians of the Law?, was published in 2013 by Springer Publishing.