Christian Q. White v. State of Indiana

── Christian Q. White v. State of Indiana ── Court: Indiana Court of Appeals Date: June 02, 2026 Author: Mary DeBoer Category: General FILED Jun 02 2026, 9:03 am CLERK Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals and Tax Court IN THE Court of Appeals of Indiana Christian Q. White, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff June 2, 2026 Court of Appeals Case No. 25A-CR-959 Appeal from the Clark Circuit Court The Honorable Nicholas A. Karaffa, Judge Trial Court Cause No. 10C01-2101-MR-1 Opinion by Judge Altice Judge Brown concurs. Judge DeBoer dissents with separate opinion. Altice, Judge. Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 25A-CR-959 | June 2, 2026 Page 1 of 34  Case Summary [1] Christian Q. White appeals his convictions for murder, a felony, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon (SVF), a Level 4 felony, claiming that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss after a mistrial was granted during his first trial because the State’s decision to retry him twice more violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. White further argues that the trial court abused its discretion in sentencing him because it did not identify any mitigating factors, and that his seventy-year aggregate sentence is inappropriate when considering the nature of the offenses and his character. White additionally claims that the trial court’s enhancement of the murder sentence based on the same firearm that formed the charge for possession of a firearm by a SVF violates double jeopardy prohibitions and that the trial court improperly ordered the ten-year enhanced sentence for his use of a firearm to run consecutive to the murder sentence. [2] We affirm. Facts and Procedural History [3] Marcus Suggs and his wife, Diane (collectively, the Suggses), were living in a Jeffersonville apartment in 2020. Diane suffers from a condition that makes her unable to walk or use her hands. White is Marcus’s cousin and he and his girlfriend moved in with the Suggses sometime in December 2020. On the evening of December 30, 2020, when the Suggses were in their bedroom, White Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 25A-CR-959 | June 2, 2026 Page 2 of 34  walked in, pointed a gun at Marcus, and ordered him to the living room. Marcus complied and at some point, White shot Marcus in the chest, killing him. White immediately fled the scene and was apprehended several days later in Kentucky following an interstate manhunt by police. While incarcerated in the Louisville jail, White admitted to shooting Marcus, but he claimed that it was accidental. [4] The State charged White with murder, possession of a firearm by a SVF, a Level 4 felony, and pointing a firearm, a Level 6 felony. It subsequently amended the charging information, alleging that White was eligible for an enhanced charge because he used a firearm durin