Supreme Court finds no violation by Bookwalter
In agreement with the advisory opinion of a hearing officer, the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that Putnam County Prosecutor Tim Bookwalter did not violate any rules of professional conduct in a 2018 case.
Bookwalter’s conduct was under review following a 2019 filing by the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission, which alleged that Bookwalter had not disclosed a deal to a key witness during the 2018 trial.
However, late last year Hearing Officer Daniel Vanderpool recommended that there be no disciplinary action against Bookwalter, finding there had been no such violation.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed in a unanimous decision.
“We adopt and incorporate by reference the hearing officer’s finding of fact,” Chief Justice Loretta Rush wrote, “and on those findings we likewise conclude that the commission has failed to prove the charged rule violation.”
Bookwalter expressed his happiness to close the book on the matter.
“I am glad the truth finally came out in this matter,” the veteran prosecutor said. “The jury, the Indiana Court of Appeals, the hearing officer and the Indiana Supreme Court have all found that I did not commit any disciplinary violation.”
He went on to say, “What does concern me is in this day and age someone can make an ‘anonymous complaint’ about you that has no truth.”
The issue revolves around the trial of Justin Cherry, who, along with three others, was found guilty in a 2017 home invasion in which an elderly Madison Township couple was brutalized and robbed.
Cherry and his accomplices were convicted of stealing the couple’s vehicle, jewelry, cash, guns, prescription medication and more. Cherry’s conviction was affirmed on appeal.
The alleged “non-disclosure” revolved around the testimony of Michael Hostetter, who was present when investigators served a warrant on Cherry’s Johnson County home. While the witness had an alibi, he was able to provide information linking Cherry to the Putnam County crime.
At the time of his interview, the witness was told by a Putnam County Sheriff’s Office detective that his name would not bet made public if he could identify the fourth suspect involved in the crime.
Unfortunately, the terms of the offer were not made known to Bookwalter, who was prosecuting the case, until after he had inadvertently violated the terms of the offer.
The hearing officer further found that when Bookwalter became aware of the terms presented to the witness, “he set about a course of conduct that was meant to honor the terms of that deal.”
Given that the witness now feared for his life after having been identified as a “snitch,” he was granted a motion to modify his sentence in a Parke County case and serve the remainder of his DOC sentence on home detention.
The hearing officer found that this “original deal” had been disclosed to Cherry’s counsel, Sydney Tongret, in the recording of the interview that was provided.
Vanderpool further found that there was no “second deal” in exchange for the witness’s testimony in the Cherry case.
If anything, Vanderpool seems to praise Bookwalter’s conduct when he was trying to work out a change in the witness’s commitment to DOC in order not only to meet the obligation made by the detective, but “perhaps more importantly to make up to Hostetter for his own role in inadvertently exposing him to potential violence from the Putnam County home invasion defendants.”