Kathryne Tillett v. State of Indiana

── Kathryne Tillett v. State of Indiana ── Court: Indiana Supreme Court Date: April 24, 2026 Author: Loretta Rush Category: General FILED Apr 24 2026, 1:07 pm CLERK Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals and Tax Court IN THE Indiana Supreme Court Supreme Court Case No. 25S-CR-231 Kathryne Tillett, Appellant-Defendant –v– State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff Argued: December 4, 2025 | Decided: April 24, 2026 Appeal from the Floyd Circuit Court No. 22C01-2202-F1-212 The Honorable Justin B. Brown, Judge On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals No. 24A-CR-01413 Opinion by Justice Massa Chief Justice Rush and Justices Slaughter and Molter concur. Justice Goff concurs in parts II and III and dissents in part I with separate opinion. Massa, Justice. A state statute sets a deadline for filing a notice of insanity as a defense in a criminal case. A court may, however, upon a showing of good cause, allow a defendant to file a late notice. The appellant in this case asks the Court to find the trial court abused its discretion by denying her belated insanity defense request. As she failed to provide good cause for her extensive delay, we decline to do so. We also reject her arguments that the evidence presented was unreliable and inadmissible under the Protected Person Statute and that her sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the crime and character of the offender. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court. Facts and Procedural History Kathryne Tillett was charged with two counts of child molesting for alleged conduct with her two young children E.W. and I.B. In January 2022, then seven-year-old E.W. approached her first-grade teacher and asked her to write a note to her mother, Tillett. E.W. said, “I need you to tell my mom to quit hurting me.” Tr. Vol. III at 105–06. When asked what she meant, E.W. stated that “she hurts me down there.” Id. at 107. E.W. then explained “she puts her finger inside of me and makes me bleed.” Id. Her teacher was aware that E.W. had a younger sister, who was three years old at the time, so she asked whether her mother did the same thing to I.B. E.W. responded that Tillett “touches her too, but she doesn’t make her bleed.” Id. E.W. told her teacher that this was occurring on a daily basis before the children would take a bath or shower. Tillett was arrested and charged with two counts of child molestation as Level 1 felonies. The trial court held a hearing and set the omnibus date (the procedural deadline for any pretrial proceedings) for April 26, 2022. On two occasions the trial court granted a continuance after Tillett’s counsel said that he was awaiting the results of a psychological evaluation. Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 25S-CR-231 | April 24, 2026 Page 2 of 13  In February 2023, in Tillett’s related Child in Need of Services (CHINS) case, Dr. Amanda Pfeffer diagnosed Tillett with schizophrenia, stimulant use disorder, borderline intellectual functioning, and a personal history of childhood sexual abuse. Then again, in April 2023, Dr. James Anderson filed a forensic evaluation which concluded that Tillett had a mental illness. He observed her engaging in behaviors typical of psychosis, in particular “she appeared to have a difficult time sustaining attention to [his] questions, as if distracted by internal stimuli.” Appellant’s Appendix Vol. II at 71. He diagnosed her with “Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorder and Metham