News Archive

Professor Joel Schumm, ’98, talked with a reporter in South Bend about Indiana’s self-defense law in connection with a murder case in that city. The South Bend Tribune story also notes the argument Professor Schumm made in a similar case before the Indiana Supreme Court.

In South Bend, Kyle Doroszko was robbed at gunpoint when he opened fire himself, killing another teenager. Police don’t dispute this, yet prosecutors charged Doroszko with murder, arguing that he didn’t have the right to defend himself because he was selling marijuana and possibly a gun.

“The problem is the self-defense statute has language that if you’re committing a crime, you can’t use self-defense,” Professor Schumm said in the story. “If you take the statute literally, someone using marijuana or playing in an illegal card game cannot use self-defense no matter what someone does to them.”

The story delves into Anthony Gammons, Jr. v. State of Indiana, which Professor Schumm argued before the Indiana Court of Appeals in October 2019, and before the Indiana Supreme Court on March 12. Gammons was convicted of murder in Marion County in a shooting he claimed was self-defense. The prosecutor argued Gammons had no right to defend himself because he was carrying a handgun without a license.

Professor Schumm is a magna cum laude graduate of IU McKinney who directs the Appellate Clinic and the Judicial Externship Program.