The Indiana Supreme Court will receive oral arguments in the case of Zachariah Konkle at 9 a.m. Sept. 12 after the Court of Appeals of Indiana reversed his conviction due to prosecutorial misconduct.

On March 22, 2023, in Jackson Circuit Court in Brownstown, the Warsaw man was sentenced to 34 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter in the death of 42-year-old Michael J. Steele.

Steele’s death occurred during a confrontation between the two men in July 2021 on the midway at the Jackson County Fair. Both men reportedly worked for Poor Jack Amusements.

Konkle was initially charged with murder in Steele’s death but found guilty of voluntary manslaughter by a jury in February 2023.

During the trial in Jackson Circuit Court in Brownstown, Konkle argued he was guilty of a less-included offense instead of murder because he did not know Steele had a heart condition.

The state, represented by Jackson County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Mark Hollingsworth used the eggshell-skull rule, a longstanding rule of criminal and civil law that a defendant takes his victim as he finds him, for the first time in his closing argument.

A phrase that often goes with this rule is, if one throws a piece of chalk at a victim with an eggshell skull, the chalk strikes the victim and fractures his skull, the perpetrator would be guilty even if he didn’t intend to bring bodily harm.

Konkle, represented by Madison attorney Robert P. Magrath, argued in his appeal that the doctrine does not apply to murder and voluntary manslaughter cases, and was therefore a misstatement of the law.

In January of this year, Indiana Court of Appeals judges Nancy H. Vaidik and Elaine B. Brown concurred with Konkle that the prosecutor’s statement constituted misconduct and fundamental error. The third member of that three-member panel, Judge Cale J. Bradford, dissented the decision with his own opinion.

To preserve a claim of misconduct, however, the defendant must request an admonishment, which can be a request to the judge to give explanations to the jury. Konkle’s defense failed to request an admonishment after an overruled objection, therefore it results in a waiver of the issue.

A fundamental error is an exception to this waiver rule where the defendant faces heavy burden of showing that the alleged errors are so harmful to their rights that would make a fair trial impossible.

In Judge Bradford’s dissent he not only disagreed that prosecutorial misconduct occurred, but there was no mistake at all.

“Unless and until the Indiana Supreme Court redefines the doctrine of prosecutorial misconduct, I will continue to assume that claims of prosecutorial misconduct require actual misconduct and not just some sort of mistake, which I also do not think occurred in this case,” Bradford said in his footnotes of the dissent.

The state then filed a petition in March to have the case transferred to the Indiana Supreme Court, which that court later accepted. Since the Supreme Court accepted the case, it is transferred as if it started there, and the Court of Appeals’ decision is vacated, meaning void so Konkle remains in prison pending the outcome of the Supreme Court review.

Hollingsworth said the Supreme Court could either uphold the current conviction of voluntary manslaughter or remand the case back to Jackson Circuit for retrial.

Voluntary manslaughter is a person who knowingly or intentionally kills another human being while acting under sudden heat. The person has to engage in the conduct knowingly if, when they engage in the conduct, they are aware of a high probability that they are killing another human.

The fight that led to Steele’s death occurred after a family attending the fair asked Konkle to find someone in charge because a carnival worker on the midway mocked their special needs child and wanted to file a complaint, according to court records.

Konkle told the family he would take care of the problem and confronted a man operating a game, who was not Steele, about the incident. When police asked Konkle if he had contacted anyone in management, Konkle said he did not.

Konkle said Steele approached him, and fighting ensued with Steele reportedly punching Konkle on the side of the head. Konkle said he punched him back but could not remember if he hit him. Konkle said he then laid on Steele’s back while he was face down on the ground gasping for air.