Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
A Kosciusko County Jail inmate was convicted on a lesser charge during a jury trial Tuesday in Kosciusko Circuit Court. The jurors deliberated about an hour before returning its verdict.
Michael Otto Hale, 28, of Warsaw, was found guilty by the four-man, two-woman jury of resisting law enforcement as a Class A misdemeanor. He was charged with the offense as a Class D felony because a police officer was injured in the melee that is the basis of his arrest. However, the wording of the charging information states that the prosecution had to prove that the injury was "inflicted" by the defendant.
Sgt. Floyd Knafel of the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department suffered a broken hand in the incident. Although testimony showed that Hale was resisting a move from a cell block in the jail to a holding cell and was flailing about during the attempt to place him in the cell, nobody actually saw Hale kick Knafel, including Knafel. Three jail officers who were present also testified during the trial.
Knafel told the jurors that he was holding Hale by the ankles when his hands "went up in the air," and possibly struck a door frame. Once Hale was locked into the cell, Knafel realized that his hand was injured. He ended up in a cast for about four weeks.
"This is what we call overcharged," defense attorney Dan Hampton said in his closing statement. "The state is trying to get him convicted of a felony, when he's not guilty of a felony."
Had the conviction been on the felony charge, Hale also would face a habitual offender charge that would have increased the length of his sentence.
Hale will be sentenced in this case in February. Any sentence he receives, Kosciusko County Prosecutor Charles Waggoner said, will likely be ordered served consecutively to a 10-year sentence recently handed down in a cocaine case and several smaller sentences from cases in Kosciusko Superior Court II. Hale could be sentenced to up to a year in jail for the resisting law enforcement conviction.
