Full Opinion

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(E), the trial court and parties shall not take any action in reliance upon this Opinion until it is certified. FILED Oct 16 2026, 9:06 am CLERK Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals and Tax Court IN THE Court of Appeals of Indiana Miguel Cruz Luna, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff October 16, 2026 Court of Appeals Case No. 26A-CR-976 Appeal from the Porter Superior Court The Honorable Michael A. Fish, Judge Trial Court Cause No. 64D01-2404-F5-3369 Opinion by Judge Bailey Judges Bradford and Altice concur. Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 1 of 9 Bailey, Judge. Case Summary [1] A jury found Miguel Cruz Luna guilty of Level 5 felony strangulation, Level 6 felony domestic battery, and Class A misdemeanor intimidation. On appeal, Luna argues that the trial court committed reversible error in admitting certain testimony and that the State failed to present sufficient evidence to support his domestic battery conviction. We affirm. Facts and Procedural History [2] Luna first met J.M. in January 2022, and they started dating. In late March 2024, they were living together in a trilevel residence in Chesterton. J.M. had a fourteen-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son who lived there “off and on.” Tr. Vol. 3 at 152. J.M. was thirty-four weeks pregnant with Luna’s child. J.M. was not working and relied on Luna for transportation. [3] On the afternoon of March 28, Luna let J.M. use his truck to take her daughter to a softball game. During the game, Luna called her and accused her “of leaving the game.” Id. at 156. Luna was “upset.” Id. at 157. J.M. “told him that [she] didn’t leave the game.” Id. The game ended around 6:00 p.m. When J.M. returned home, “[i]t was just [she] and [her] kids there.” Id. At some point, Luna came home for approximately fifteen minutes and then “went to a bar to play pool.” Id. at 158. Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 2 of 9 [4] Luna returned home around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and appeared to be intoxicated. “He was angry and yelling at [J.M.] and accusing [her] of stuff that [she] was not doing[,]” i.e., that she “had left [her] daughter’s softball game and [gone] somewhere.” Id. at 158-59. The argument started in their bedroom, which was on the upper level of the home. The bedroom door was closed, and Luna “kept telling [J.M.] to be quiet so the kids wouldn’t wake up.” Id. at 162. The children did not have their own bedrooms: J.M.’s daughter was sleeping on a couch in the “open basement[,]” and her son was sleeping on a couch on the main level. Id. at 194. [5] Luna took J.M.’s phone, grabbed the back of her head, and choked her. Over the course of approximately five hours, he choked her five or six times, and she was unable to breathe on two of those occasions. He also hit her in the face with her phone and “raised a bottle of Hennessy like he was going to hit [her] in the head with it.” Id. at 160. He called her names, punched her in the eye, and grabbed her and held her down, all of which left multiple bruises and scratches on her face, neck, chest, wrists, and arms. Luna threw J.M.’s phone at her “a couple times[,]” left the room, “and then would come right back” and retrieve it. Id. at 161. When J.M. did have possession of her phone, she did not call an ambulance or the police because she “was worried [Luna] might hurt [her children].” Id. at 221. Luna would not let J.M. leave the room. [6] At approximately 7:00 or 8:00 a.m., J.M.’s son woke up because “[i]t was just morning time.” Id. at 162. Luna gave him some breakfast, “hooked up [a] camper to the truck[,]” and tried to get J.M. to go to Tennessee with him and Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 3 of 9 “let [her] kids go to their dad.” Id. Luna then left “to go get gas or something[.]” Id. at 163. J.M., who had regained possession of her phone, took a photo of her “black eye[,]” sent it to her neighbor, and “asked her to come pick [her] up.” Id. The neighbor picked up J.M. and her children and took them to “her house for a little bit[.]” Id. at 186. The neighbor tried to get J.M. to go to the police station, but J.M. “wanted to go to the hospital to make sure [her] baby was okay[,]” which it was. Id. at 165. After J.M. arrived at the hospital, Chesterton Police Department Officer Jorge Perez interviewed her and took photos of her injuries. [7] The State charged Luna with strangulation, as a Level 5 felony; domestic battery, as a Level 6 felony; and intimidation, as a Class A misdemeanor. In February 2026, the court held a two-day jury trial, during which J.M. testified to the foregoing and Officer Perez’s photos of her injuries were admitted into evidence. The jury found Luna guilty as charged. The trial court imposed an aggregate sentence of seven years executed. Luna now appeals his convictions. Discussion and Decision Issue One: Admission of Evidence [8] After Officer Perez and J.M. testified for the State, the prosecutor called Erin Erickson to the stand. Erickson is the director of client and community services at a domestic violence shelter in northwest Indiana. Erickson acknowledged that she knew nothing about Luna’s case and that the shelter had nothing to do with the case. The prosecutor elicited testimony regarding Erickson’s Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 4 of 9 qualifications, different types of domestic violence, and various “red flags” that she looked for “[w]hen speaking with victims of domestic violence[.]” Id. at 243. Defense counsel made numerous objections to Erickson’s testimony based on relevancy and/or foundation, and the court overruled some objections and sustained others. [9] On appeal, Luna argues that Erickson’s testimony was irrelevant, lacked foundation, and was unfairly prejudicial (an objection that was not raised below), and thus the trial court committed reversible error in admitting it. The State argues that Luna waived some of his claims and that any error in the admission of the testimony was harmless. We elect to decide the issue on harmless error grounds.1 [10] “An error in the admission or exclusion of evidence will be found to be harmless if its probable impact on the jury, in light of all the evidence in the case, is sufficiently minor so as not to affect the substantial rights of the parties.” Jones v. State, 218 N.E.3d 3, 12 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023) (citation modified), trans. denied; see also Ind. Appellate Rule 66(A). Under the probable-impact test, “the party seeking relief bears the burden of demonstrating how, in light of all the evidence in the case, the error’s probable impact undermines confidence in the outcome of the proceeding below.” Hayko v. State, 211 N.E.3d 483, 492 (Ind. 2023), cert. denied. 1 The State points out that Luna does not raise any claims of fundamental error. Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 5 of 9 Importantly, this is not a review for the sufficiency of the remaining evidence; it is a review of what was presented to the trier of fact compared to what should have been presented. And when conducting that review, we consider the likely impact of the improperly admitted or excluded evidence on a reasonable, average jury in light of all the evidence in the case. Ultimately, the error’s probable impact is sufficiently minor when— considering the entire record—our confidence in the outcome is not undermined. Id. (citation omitted). [11] At trial, J.M. testified unequivocally that Luna battered and strangled her and intimidated her by threatening to hit her in the head with the Hennessy bottle. She further testified that he inflicted the injuries documented in the photos taken by Officer Perez, which corroborated her testimony. Defense counsel questioned J.M. about some of the statements she made to Officer Perez and why she waited several hours to go to the hospital; second-guessed the thoroughness of the police investigation; and criticized the State’s decision not to publish J.M.’s phone and medical records and call additional witnesses (such as J.M.’s children and the neighbor who took her to the hospital). But the identity of J.M.’s assailant was never in any serious doubt. Moreover, neither defense counsel nor the prosecutor mentioned Erickson’s brief testimony in closing arguments at the conclusion of the two-day trial.2 Luna has failed to 2 Erickson’s testimony spans a twenty-one-page portion of the transcript, much of which is taken up by objections, responses, and trial court rulings thereon. Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 6 of 9 undermine our confidence in the outcome of his trial, so we conclude that any error in the admission of Erickson’s testimony was harmless.3 Issue Two: Sufficiency of Evidence [12] Luna also contends that the State failed to present sufficient evidence to support his Level 6 felony domestic battery conviction. “When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, our role is to consider only the probative evidence and reasonable inferences supporting the verdict.” Carmouche v. State, 188 N.E.3d 482, 485 (Ind. Ct. App. 2022). “We will not reassess witness credibility or reweigh the evidence.” Id. “Where a conviction is based, at least in part, on circumstantial evidence, the evidence need not overcome every reasonable hypothesis of innocence.” Johnson v. State, 9 N.E.3d 186, 191 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (citation and quotation marks omitted), trans. denied. “We must affirm if the evidence and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom could have allowed a reasonable trier of fact to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Morales v. State, 227 N.E.3d 183, 188 (Ind. Ct. App. 2024), trans. denied. 3 Luna asserts that “[t]his case essentially came down to a credibility determination” and that “‘[e]vidence which would support the credibility of a person cannot be said to be harmless when the conviction rested primarily on the credibility of the witness.’” Appellant’s Br. at 21 (quoting Hamilton v. State, 49 N.E.3d 554, 556 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015), opinion on reh’g). But in Hamilton, in which we reversed the defendant’s child molesting convictions due to the erroneous admission of vouching testimony, “[t]here was no corroborating evidence of Hamilton’s guilt apart from the testimony of” his alleged victims. 43 N.E.3d 628, 634 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015), reh’g granted, trans. denied. Here, Officer Perez’s photos of J.M.’s injuries corroborated her testimony that she was battered and strangled by Luna. Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 7 of 9 [13] A person commits domestic battery, as a Class A misdemeanor, by knowingly or intentionally touching a family or household member in a rude, insolent, or angry manner. Ind. Code § 35-42-2-1.3(a)(1). The offense is elevated to a Level 6 felony if the person commits the offense “in the physical presence of a child less than sixteen (16) years of age, knowing that the child was present and might be able to see or hear the offense.” I.C. § 35-42-2-1.3(b)(2). [14] Luna contends that the evidence did not establish that he committed domestic battery in the physical presence of J.M.’s children. He argues that “‘physical presence’ does not encompass the situation in this case: where the children are on a different floor and do not see the incident.” Appellant’s Br. at 24. But Luna’s argument disregards that the domestic battery statute does not require that a child actually see the offense; it requires only that the defendant know that a child is present and “might be able to see or hear the offense.” I.C. § 35-42- 2-1.3(b)(2) (emphases added). J.M. testified that Luna “kept telling [her] to be quiet so the kids wouldn’t wake up[,]” Tr. Vol. 3 at 162, which is circumstantial evidence that Luna knew that the children were present and that one or both of them might have been able to hear him battering J.M. [15] The legislature has not defined “physical presence” as used in the domestic battery statute, but the plain meaning of that phrase clearly encompasses a zone of presence in which a child might be able to see or hear the offense. “We must give effect to the plain and ordinary meaning of statutory terms, and there is a presumption that the legislature intended the statutory language to be applied logically and consistently with the statute’s underlying policy and goals.” Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 8 of 9 Rodriguez v. State, 129 N.E.3d 789, 796 (Ind. 2019) (citation modified). The underlying policy and goals of Indiana Code Section 35-42-2-1.3(b)(2) are to impose a more severe penalty for domestic batteries that are committed in proximity to a child who the defendant knows might see or hear the offense. As stated above, the evidence established that Luna knew that the children were present and that one or both of them might have been able to hear the offense. Accordingly, we affirm his conviction for domestic battery as a Level 6 felony. [16] Affirmed. Bradford, J., and Altice, J., concur. ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT James E. Harper Harper & Harper, LLC Valparaiso, Indiana ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Theodore E. Rokita Indiana Attorney General Daylon L. Welliver Supervising Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 26A-CR-976 | October 16, 2026 Page 9 of 9