Dan Carden

A Porter County man convicted of murder in 2016 can bypass Indiana's process for seeking post-conviction relief and assert his claim of actual innocence, along with a variety of alleged constitutional violations from his trial, directly at the federal court in South Bend.

In a scathing ruling , the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago found the Porter Superior Court has inordinately delayed acting on the post-conviction petition filed in 2019 by Steven Lindsey, 45, and concluded Lindsey is entitled to pursue his case in federal court without first exhausting his state court remedies.

Judge Nancy Maldonado, writing on behalf of the unanimous, three-judge federal appellate panel, said the six-year "pattern of inaction" on Lindsey's case in Porter County is "unacceptab

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