By Dave Stafford, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
ANDERSON — In one of his last acts before resigning from the bench, Madison County Circuit Court Judge Fredrick R. Spencer dismissed a felony handgun charge against City Councilman Ollie H. Dixon Sr.
Spencer tossed the criminal recklessness charge against Dixon, 60, that stemmed from the discovery that Dixon allegedly possessed a handgun in a detox chamber of the Madison County Jail. He was held there after his arrest for drunken driving on March 28.
“People will say the fix is in,” Spencer acknowledged in an interview Friday. “But it’s not true.” Dixon and Spencer are both Democrats.
Dixon said Friday that he had accepted responsibility on the drunken-driving charge and called the gun charge against him “ridiculous,” and “political-, racial- and class-motivated.”
“I was not properly searched and I was intoxicated, and I pleaded guilty to being intoxicated,” Dixon said. “I was allegedly searched four times ... those officers should have never missed that gun. ... It was not my responsibility to find that gun.”
Special prosecutor J.A. Cummins from Delaware County said he would appeal Spencer’s ruling to the Indiana Court of Appeals. He said he had discussed an appeal Friday with the Indiana attorney general’s office.
A Madison County grand jury had charged Dixon with class-D felony criminal recklessness after he was accused of bringing a loaded .45 caliber handgun into the jail. That charge was filed in Spencer’s court after Dixon had been charged in Anderson City Court with operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
Dixon pleaded guilty to the drunken-driving charge in June and was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to undergo substance-abuse counseling. Two other city court charges connected with his arrest were dropped.
Dixon was scheduled to stand trial on the recklessness charge next month, but Spencer ruled the case can’t proceed because all the charges against Dixon should have been consolidated into a single case.
“There is no break in the chain of events which led to the filing of these two cases,” Spencer wrote. Dixon’s guilty plea to the drunken-driving charge “bars the state from pursuing” the recklessness charge, Spencer wrote.
Rector, Dixon’s attorney, filed a motion to dismiss the case in July, and Spencer heard arguments on Sept. 2. She said that made Spencer the proper judgment to issue a ruling.
“Honestly, a mistake was made” by prosecutors who failed to consolidate the charges, Rector said. “It’s not like the judge is leaving and saying ‘let me take care of Ollie when I go.’ It’s just not that way.”
Rector said Dixon’s plea to the drunken-driving charge in city court was allowed by a prosecutor who wanted to use it to bolster the recklessness charge against Dixon. Rector said she realized that Dixon’s plea would allow an argument that further charges against him would violate the state’s successive prosecution statutes.
“It was a strategic reason for him, and it was a strategic reason for us. We think we’re in the right,” she said.
Cummins, the special prosecutor, said he had good reason for proceeding as he did, and believes the law is on his side.
“The decision of the state to not join charges was based upon assuring the defendant would receive a fair trial without confusion of the issues,” Cummins said.
“I didn’t think the law required the two cases be joined and my reading of the law and understanding of it, it would require that they not be joined,” he said.
Cummins said the appeal process would take several months, but that an appeal of Spencer’s ruling would be filed by year’s end.
Dixon, who has a license to carry a handgun, said that he realizes his legal problems might not be over.
“I hope we can go on with our lives now and take care of the responsibilities we’re supposed to take care of,” he said. “I feel I’ve been treated unfairly and discriminated against.”
Dixon pointed blame at Sheriff Ron Richardson, also a Democrat: “He missed an opportunity to show him and his department could be held accountable.
Richardson, contacted Friday, said he had no reaction to the charge being dismissed or to Dixon’s comment.
“We completed our investigation,” he said, “we did that and what we felt was best and right to do. Once it goes into the hands of the prosecutor and the courts, it’s out of our hands and we’ve done what we felt was best.”
He said jail staff was retrained on pat-down search procedures and that metal wand searches were instituted after the Dixon incident.
“Even if (the gun) had been found at book-in, it still would have been bringing it into the jail when it was found,” Richardson said, describing a criminal offense.
Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com
