Indiana Rewrote Its Law Twice to Charge a 2006 Suspect

Michael Jerome James sat in a Johnson County courtroom on Oct. 8 facing four counts of murder for killings committed when he was 14 years old. His prosecution required the Indiana legislature to rewrite state law twice after courts struck down the first attempt, according to Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner.

James, now 35, is accused of stabbing 10-year-old Blake Dickus and his 26-year-old stepmother, Chynna Dickus, inside their home in Franklin, Indiana, on July 24, 2006. Prosecutors allege he killed them while burglarizing or attempting to burglarize the residence in the Branigin Woods subdivision.

The case stalled for nearly two decades not because investigators lacked a suspect, but because Indiana’s jurisdictional framework contained no mechanism to try him. State law historically granted juvenile courts exclusive authority over crimes committed by minors. Since police did not identify or charge James before he turned 18, adult courts had no statutory basis to hear the case.

“That’s what took us so long,” Hamner told Fox News Digital. “We had a suspect identified. We weren’t able to bring charges for several years because we were trying to get the jurisdictional statute in place.”

Lawmakers passed a statute in 2023 creating a pathway for adult courts to handle certain cases involving people accused of committing serious crimes as juveniles. The fix failed almost immediately. A separate child molestation case tested the new law, and both the Indiana Court of Appeals and the Indiana Supreme Court rejected its application.

“That means that we couldn’t use it either,” Hamner said.

Prosecutors returned to the legislature. Using the Supreme Court’s reasoning from the rejected 2023 statute, they drafted new language addressing those specific legal concerns. Lawmakers passed the revised statute in 2025, giving Hamner’s office the mechanism needed to secure the grand jury indictment against James.

Criminal defense lawyer Mike Cunningham told Fox 59 News that retroactive application remains legally vulnerable. “For acts that are committed after 2023, if you’re a juvenile and we don’t learn about it until after you’re 21, then you may be held accountable in adult court,” Cunningham said. “But what the court has said is for anything that happened before 2023, the law does not permit that because they did not have adequate notice.”

If James’ eventual defense attorney challenges the court’s jurisdiction, the dispute will determine whether the murder case proceeds at all. During his initial appearance, James told Judge Andrew Roesener he planned to hire an attorney. Roesener set a Nov. 2 deadline.

The underlying crime left severe physical evidence. Blake suffered multiple stab wounds, blunt-force injuries and signs of smothering. His mother, Christina Smith, told WTHR her son fought his attacker, sustaining deep lacerations to his hands while trying to grab the knife. Chynna also died of stab wounds. Blake’s father, Sean Dickus, discovered both bodies. He faced public suspicion for years despite being cleared by investigators early on.

Police spent years examining connections between the murders and a string of break-ins within a half-mile of the Aberdeen Drive home. They questioned construction workers active in the neighborhood during the summer of 2006. None yielded a suspect.

Hamner, first elected Johnson County prosecutor in 1991, held the office when the murders occurred. He left to become a judge in 2009. In 2021, investigators informed him they had caught a break. Hamner declined to specify what led authorities to James, but said the development drove his decision to leave the bench and run for prosecutor again.

Franklin Police Capt. Jeff Dawe told WTHR that James represents the first lead in the investigation supported by forensic evidence. Authorities have not publicly disclosed the nature of that evidence.

James remains held without bond at the Johnson County Jail. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Dec. 10.