Indiana Supreme Court to look at case involving a discussed bombing of Seymour High School

The Indiana Supreme Court will decide whether a teenager who made violent threats against his school can be adjudicated as a delinquent for both attempted and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery after it hears oral arguments in the Jackson County case this week.

TheIndianaLawyer.com is reporting that the high court has granted transfer to B.T.E. v. State of Indiana and will hear oral arguments in the Seymour juvenile delinquency case on Thursday. In the fall of 2015, two Seymour High School students, identified only as B.T.E. and M.V., began planning an attack on their school on April 20, 2018, the anniversary of the Columbine shootings.

The court says that the students discussed their strategy, which included making pipe bombs and a diagram of the school targeting a specific student’s assigned seat, on social media. They also shared their plans with classmates. One of those classmates reported the threats to the school, which lead to an investigation by the Seymour Police Department.

After police interviewed the students and examined their Facebook accounts, M.V. was adjudicated, or found guilty by a judge, as a delinquent for conspiracy to commit aggravated battery, while B.T.E. was adjudicated for conspiracy to commit and attempted aggravated battery. But a divided panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned B.T.E.’s adjudication on the attempt charge, finding his actions constituted only preparation for the attack, not a “substantial step” toward carrying it out.

The justices will consider B.T.E.’s adjudications at 9 a.m. on Thursday.