Case Title: Idaho v. Akins

Citation: 

Docket Number: 45347

State: idaho

Court: Idaho Supreme Court (criminal)

Date: 2018-08-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
1 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO 
 
Docket No. 45347 
 
STATE OF IDAHO, 
 
Plaintiff-Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
LAURA LOUISE AKINS, 
 
Defendant-Respondent. 
_______________________________________ 
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
) 
Boise, June 2018 Term 
 
Filed: August 6, 2018 
 
Karel A. Lehrman, Clerk 
 
Appeal from the District Court of the First Judicial District of the State of Idaho, 
Kootenai County. Honorable Richard S. Christensen, District Judge. 
 
The decision of the district court is affirmed. 
 
Honorable Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for appellant.  
Kenneth K. Jorgensen argued. 
 
Eric D. Fredericksen, State Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for respondent. 
Jenny C. Swinford argued. 
_____________________ 
BRODY, Justice. 
The State appeals from the dismissal of a charge against the defendant for her failure to 
notify of a death pursuant to Idaho Code section 19-4301A. The statute imposes a duty on 
persons who find or have custody of a body to promptly notify authorities. It also prescribes the 
punishment for failure to comply with that duty, including felony punishment for failing to notify 
with intent to prevent discovery of the manner of death. The question presented on appeal is 
whether the defendant’s prosecution under this statute would violate her Fifth Amendment 
privilege against self-incrimination. We hold that it would based on the unique set of facts of this 
case and affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss the charge. 
I. 
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
In November 2015, Kimberly Vezina’s body was found wrapped in a tarp and a shower 
curtain in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Law enforcement’s investigation revealed that Laura Akins was 
suspected of disposing the body after Vezina died of a drug overdose. The investigation 
2 
established that on the morning of October 15, 2015, Vezina was found deceased in a bathroom 
of a house in Spokane Valley, Washington. At the time, Akins was living in the house with a 
collection of other occupants. The residence had been raided earlier that month and was known 
by local law enforcement as a place where significant drug use and distribution occurred. During 
the course of the investigation, multiple persons relayed suspicion that Vezina was the victim of 
an intentional overdose caused or ordered by a former resident. 
Following the discovery of Vezina’s death, one of the other residents directed Akins and 
another person who had been at the house, Lacy Drake, to dispose of the body at a lake house 
owned by Akins’s relatives in Coeur d’Alene. This decision reflected that Akins and Drake had 
less extensive criminal records than the other occupants of the house. That evening, Akins and 
Drake were provided with a “burner” SUV in which the wrapped body had been placed in the 
rear cargo area. After briefly stopping at the lake house, Akins and Drake drove to a nearby 
public boat launch, unloaded the body, carried it to the dock, and dumped it into the water with 
an attached bag of cement. Three weeks later, the body was discovered by two fishermen who 
initially noticed the tarp on the surface of the lake and thereafter notified authorities. A 
subsequent coroner’s examination confirmed that Vezina had died of combined drug toxicity. 
The State charged Akins with one count of failure to notify of a death (I.C. § 19-
4301A(3)) and one count of destruction of evidence (I.C. § 18-2603). As to the first count, the 
State specifically alleged  
[t]hat the defendant, Laura Louise Akins, on or about the 15th day of October, 
2015, in the County of Kootenai, State of Idaho, having had custody of the body 
of Kimberly Sue Vezina, a human being who died, failed to notify or delayed 
notification to law enforcement or coroner of said death where the death would be 
subject to the coroner’s investigation, with the intent to prevent discovery of the 
manner of death[.] 
Akins moved to dismiss this count, contending that her prosecution under section 19-
4301A violated her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Following a hearing 
on the motion, the district court issued a memorandum decision dismissing the count. The district 
court later entered a written order, from which the State now appeals. 
II. 
STANDARD OF REVIEW 
“This Court applies an abuse of discretion standard when it reviews a trial court’s 
decision on a motion to dismiss.” State v. Eversole, 160 Idaho 239, 244, 371 P.3d 293, 298 
(2016) (citing State v. Card, 137 Idaho 182, 184, 45 P.3d 838, 840 (2002)). To determine if a 
3 
trial court abused its discretion, this Court considers whether the trial court perceived the issue as 
one of discretion, acted within the outer boundaries of that discretion, acted consistently with the 
applicable legal standards, and reached its decision by an exercise of reason. Id. (citing State v. 
Joy, 155 Idaho 1, 6, 304 P.3d 276, 281 (2013)). Akins’s motion raised a constitutional challenge. 
“Constitutional issues are purely questions of law over which this Court exercises free review.” 
State v. Baeza, 161 Idaho 38, 40, 383 P.3d 1208, 1210 (2016) (quoting Morgan v. New Sweden 
Irrigation Dist., 160 Idaho 47, 51, 368 P.3d 990, 994 (2016)). 
III. 
ANALYSIS 
This appeal presents a question of first impression for this Court. The issue underlying 
Akins’s motion was whether enforcement of section 19-4301A against her would be 
constitutionally permissible in light of her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. 
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled 
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S. Const. amend. V. The privilege 
against compulsory self-incrimination has been incorporated against the states through the 
Fourteenth Amendment. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 6 (1964); see also Idaho Const. art. I, 
§ 13. In its application, the privilege “protects against any disclosures which the witness 
reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that 
might be so used.” Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 445 (1972) (citing Hoffman v. United 
States, 341 U.S. 479 (1951); Blau v. United States, 340 U.S. 159 (1950); Mason v. United States, 
244 U.S. 362 (1917)). “This provision of the Amendment must be accorded liberal construction 
in favor of the right it was intended to secure.” Hoffman, 341 U.S. at 486. 
Section 19-4301A is found amongst the criminal procedure statutes regarding coroner 
inquests. See I.C. §§ 19-4301 to 19-4310. The statute imposes a duty on persons who find or 
have custody of a body to promptly notify the coroner or appropriate law enforcement personnel 
and prescribes punishment for failures to comply with that duty: 
(1) Where any death occurs which would be subject to investigation by the 
coroner under section 19-4301(1), Idaho Code, the person who finds or has 
custody of the body shall promptly notify either the coroner, who shall notify the 
appropriate law enforcement agency, or a law enforcement officer or agency, 
which shall notify the coroner. Pending arrival of a law enforcement officer, the 
person finding or having custody of the body shall take reasonable precautions to 
preserve the body and body fluids and the scene of the event shall not be 
disturbed by anyone until authorization is given by the law enforcement officer 
conducting the investigation. 
4 
(2) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (3) of this section, any person who 
fails to notify the coroner or law enforcement pursuant to subsection (1) of this 
section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by up to one (1) 
year in the county jail or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or 
by both such imprisonment and fine. 
(3) Any person who, with the intent to prevent discovery of the manner of death, 
fails to notify or delays notification to the coroner or law enforcement pursuant to 
subsection (1) of this section, shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by 
imprisonment in the state prison for a term not to exceed ten (10) years or by a 
fine not to exceed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) or by both such fine and 
imprisonment. 
I.C. § 19-4301A. 
The duty to notify set forth in the first sentence of subsection (1)—i.e., the “reporting 
requirement”—is triggered when there is a death that is subject to a coroner’s investigation under 
Idaho Code section 19-4301(1). A county coroner must investigate a death if:  
(a) The death occurred as a result of violence, whether apparently by homicide, 
suicide or by accident; 
(b) The death occurred under suspicious or unknown circumstances; or 
(c) The death is of a stillborn child or any child if there is a reasonable articulable 
suspicion to believe that the death occurred without a known medical disease to 
account for the stillbirth or child’s death. 
I.C. § 19-4301(1). The remaining two subsections of section 19-4301A set forth misdemeanor 
and felony penalties for a failure to report. Misdemeanors are imposed for any failure except 
those occurring “with the intent to prevent discovery of the manner of death,” which are subject 
to felony punishment. I.C. § 19-4301A(2)–(3). 
Akins was charged with a felony under subsection (3). Based on the statute’s language, 
for the State to enforce subsection (3), it was required to establish that Akins had an obligation to 
report under subsection (1). In her motion, Akins argued that her compliance with any obligation 
imposed by the statute would have forced her to provide potentially self-incriminating 
information. The district court agreed, finding that the State’s charge would effectively punish 
Akins for her failure to incriminate herself, and that therefore her claim of privilege provided a 
full defense from prosecution. The State argues that this decision was incorrect for two reasons: 
(1) section 19-4301A did not require Akins to provide testimonial evidence, and (2) Akins’s duty 
to comply with the statute’s reporting requirement did not create a hazard of self-incrimination. 
5 
The State’s first argument raises a significant threshold question because the statute must 
require compelled testimony for Akins’s claim to have merit. The Fifth Amendment privilege 
against self-incrimination “protects an accused only from being compelled to testify against 
himself, or otherwise provide the State with evidence of a testimonial or communicative nature . 
. . .” Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 761 (1966). “[I]n order to be testimonial, an 
accused’s communication must itself, explicitly or implicitly, relate a factual assertion or 
disclose information.” Doe v. United States, 487 U.S. 201, 210 (1988). In the context of section 
19-4301A, identification of oneself as someone with knowledge of the information that is 
required to be disclosed by the statute would constitute evidence of a testimonial nature. The 
State argues that the text of section 19-4301A only required Akins to report the fact of death and 
the location of the body, and that these details alone are not personally identifying. Akins 
responds that the statute contains no limit on the information that must be provided to comply 
with its reporting requirement, and that such silence should be read in her favor because it rests 
the ultimate determination of compliance with the prosecutor and law enforcement. She also 
points out that the statute requires the reporting individual to preserve the body until otherwise 
authorized, which eliminates the possibility of anonymous reporting and makes logical 
compliance with and application of the statute far more involved than the State contends. 
On its face, the statute requires notification of authorities upon discovery or acquisition of 
custody of a body, and for the notifying person to “take reasonable precautions to preserve the 
body and body fluids and the scene of the event” until authorized otherwise by those authorities. 
I.C. § 19-4301A(1). Consistent with the State’s argument, the plain language of the statute does 
not expressly mandate that the notifying person share any personally identifying information 
with the authorities. That said, other than notice, the statute offers no explanation of what 
information must be provided to fulfill the reporting obligation. 
The district court did not directly address this issue in its written decision; however, its 
willingness to analyze the statute beyond this issue implies that it found the reporting 
requirement under section 19-4301A(1) demanding enough such that provision of testimonial 
evidence through the revelation of personally identifying information was guaranteed. This 
conclusion finds support in analogous case law where the constitutional privilege has applied to 
protect against prosecution under the federal misprision of felony statute, which reads: 
6 
Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a 
court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known 
the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the 
United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three 
years, or both. 
18 U.S.C. § 4. 
While the language of the reporting requirement in the misprision statute does not 
expressly necessitate provision of personally identifying information, this statutory silence has 
not stopped courts from reaching a conclusion that the privilege applied because compliance 
with the requirement would threaten the defendant with a hazard of self-incrimination. See, e.g., 
United States v. Warters, 885 F.2d 1266, 1275 (5th Cir. 1989); United States v. Jennings, 603 
F.2d 650, 652–54 (7th Cir. 1979); United States v. Kuh, 541 F.2d 672, 677 (7th Cir. 1976); 
United States v. King, 402 F.2d 694, 697 (9th Cir. 1968); see also Roberts v. United States, 445 
U.S. 552, 558–59 (1980); id. at 565 & n.3 (Marshall, J., dissenting); United States v. Caraballo-
Rodriguez, 480 F.3d 62, 72 n.7 (1st Cir. 2007); United States v. Weekley, 389 F. Supp. 2d 1293, 
1299 (S.D. Ala. 2005); United States v. Graham, 487 F. Supp. 1317, 1319–20 (W.D. Ky. 1980). 
It can be inferred from these decisions that statutory language requiring the reporting of 
personally identifying information is not essential for testimonial evidence to be compelled. We 
find this path to be correct with regard to section 19-4301A as well, and will further consider the 
statute with an understanding that compliance with its requirements results in the provision of 
testimonial evidence. 
To that point, we turn to the State’s second argument that Akins’s duty to comply with 
the reporting requirement under section 19-4301A did not create a hazard of self-incrimination. 
The U.S. Supreme Court has unpacked a host of statutes that required reporting of information 
that, by its nature, may have been considered incriminating against the reporting party. The 
foundational case in this line of precedent is Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 
382 U.S. 70 (1965). In Albertson, the Court set aside orders requiring the petitioners to register 
under a since-repealed provision of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950. Id. at 77–79. 
In so doing, the petitioners would have been forced to complete a registration form, which itself 
required admission of membership in the Communist Party. Id. at 77. The Court explained that 
admission of this kind could be used to prosecute the registering party under multiple federal 
criminal statutes, reaffirming previous holdings that “mere association with the Communist Party 
present[ed] sufficient threat of prosecution to support a claim of privilege.” Id. at 77–78 (citing 
7 
Patricia Blau v. United States, 340 U.S. 159 (1950); Irving Blau v. United States, 340 U.S. 332 
(1951); Brunner v. United States, 343 U.S. 918 (1952); Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155 
(1955)). Even beyond the admission of membership, the Court emphasized that registration 
required the petitioners to reveal identifying information that could be used as evidence or 
investigative material for future criminal prosecution. Id. at 78 (explaining that one of the forms 
required provision of “the organization of which the registrant is a member, his aliases, place and 
date of birth, a list of offices held in the organization and duties thereof”). 
The Court contrasted these circumstances with those presented in United States v. 
Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259 (1927), where it had held that a bootlegger could not invoke the Fifth 
Amendment as a basis for refusing to file an income tax return. Id. at 78–79 (“[I]f the form of 
return provided called for answers that the defendant was privileged from making he could have 
raised the objection in the return, but could not on that account refuse to make any return at all.” 
(quoting 274 U.S. at 263)). Distinguishing Sullivan, the Court in Albertson concluded as follows: 
In Sullivan the questions in the income tax return were neutral on their face and 
directed at the public at large, but here they are directed at a highly selective 
group inherently suspect of criminal activities. Petitioners’ claims are not asserted 
in an essentially noncriminal and regulatory area of inquiry, but against an inquiry 
in an area permeated with criminal statutes, where response to any of the form’s 
questions in context might involve the petitioners in the admission of a crucial 
element of a crime. 
Id. at 79. 
Shortly after Albertson, the Court held that the constitutional privilege was properly 
asserted in a handful of cases. Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39 (1968) (prosecution for 
violations of federal tax statutes requiring payment of wagering taxes, registration as party 
facilitating wagering activities, and filing of monthly returns to the Internal Revenue Service, 
and penalizing noncompliance); Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 62 (1968) (same as 
Marchetti); Haynes v. United States, 390 U.S. 85 (1968) (federal firearms statute requiring 
registration and penalizing unregistered firearm possession); Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6 
(1969) (federal marijuana statute requiring registration as transferee of marijuana and payment of 
occupational taxes, and penalizing unregistered possessors and tax delinquents). 
The primary case on the other end of the spectrum arrived a few years later. In California 
v. Byers, 402 U.S. 424 (1971), a plurality of the Court distinguished the above cases from one 
that arose from California’s hit-and-run statute. The statute mandated the driver of any vehicle 
8 
involved in an automobile accident resulting in property damage to stop at the scene and provide 
his name and address to the owner of such property. Id. at 426 (citing to Cal. Veh. Code 
§ 20002(a)(1) (1971)). Contrasting the Albertson decision, the plurality explained that the statute 
was found in California’s Vehicle Code and was “essentially regulatory, not criminal,” noting 
further that the California Supreme Court had explained that the statute “was not intended to 
facilitate criminal convictions but to promote the satisfaction of civil liabilities arising from 
automobile accidents.” Id. at 430. The plurality also emphasized that the statute was “directed at 
the public at large” because it applied to all persons who drove in the state, and was therefore not 
aimed at a group that could be considered “highly selective” or “inherently suspect of criminal 
activities.” Id. at 430–31. Reaching these conclusions, the plurality rejected the idea that 
compliance with the statute could pose a substantial hazard of self-incrimination: 
After having stopped, a driver involved in an accident is required by [the statute] 
to notify the driver of the other vehicle of his name and address. A name, linked 
with a motor vehicle, is no more incriminating than the tax return, linked with the 
disclosure of income, in United States v. Sullivan[, 274 U.S. 259]. It identifies but 
does not by itself implicate anyone in criminal conduct. 
Although identity, when made known, may lead to inquiry that in turn leads to 
arrest and charge, those developments depend on different factors and 
independent evidence. Here the compelled disclosure of identity could have led to 
a charge that might not have been made had the driver fled the scene; but this is 
true only in the same sense that a taxpayer can be charged on the basis of the 
contents of a tax return or failure to file an income tax form. There is no 
constitutional right to refuse to file an income tax return or to flee the scene of an 
accident in order to avoid the possibility of legal involvement. 
Id. at 433–34 (footnote omitted). 
After Byers, the Court similarly held that other statutes did not implicate the Fifth 
Amendment because they were part of generally applicable and noncriminal regulatory regimes 
of the state. See Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court, 542 U.S. 177, 190–91 (2004) (rejecting 
privilege claim against state statute requiring any person to identify himself to a police officer 
after having been detained through a traffic or investigatory stop); Baltimore City Dep’t of Soc. 
Servs. v. Bouknight, 493 U.S. 549, 559 (1990) (rejecting privilege claim against custody order 
requiring production of a child); see also United States v. Ward, 448 U.S. 242, 255 (1980) 
(rejecting similar Fifth Amendment argument because monetary penalty imposed by the Federal 
Water Pollution Control Act was a civil penalty and not a criminal sanction). 
9 
The statutory schemes at issue in all of these cases follow the same pattern: a requirement 
to report or otherwise provide information is imposed, and failures to comply with that 
requirement are penalized. So far, this squares with the provisions of section 19-4301A. The 
question then becomes whether there existed a hazard of self-incrimination. Since Albertson, the 
Supreme Court has considered two criteria when seeking to answer this question: (1) whether the 
statute targets a highly selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities or the public at 
large, and (2) whether the statute is surrounded by criminal provisions or part of a noncriminal 
regulatory scheme. Broadly, these criteria assess the statute’s application and its purpose. If 
consideration of these criteria points to the former option under each, the hazard of self-
incrimination is likely to be substantial. In Albertson and its ilk, the hazard was substantial, 
whereas in Byers and cases decided thereafter, the Court reached the opposite conclusion. It was 
through this window that the district court analyzed section 19-4301A. In so doing, the court 
concluded that the statute was closer to the Albertson mold, reasoning that it targeted a very 
narrow group inherently suspect of criminal activity with an offense that arose from an area of 
the law designed to facilitate criminal culpability. The State argues that the district court erred 
with regard to both criteria. 
Specific to the first Albertson criterion, the district court found that Akins’s charge of 
violating section 19-4301A(3) indicated that she was being specially targeted. The court reached 
this conclusion following two steps of statutory interpretation: First, it found that in light of the 
different circumstances of death that implicate the reporting requirement—as set forth by section 
19-4301(1)— misdemeanor punishment under section 19-4301A(2) is directed at the public at 
large. In contrast, however, the court found that felony punishment under section 19-4301A(3) 
targets a much smaller and more suspect population because subsection (3) punishes only those 
violations that have been accompanied by “intent to prevent discovery of the manner of death.” 
The court explained that this additional element meant that the provision focuses on a particular 
subset of persons who are incentivized to avoid criminal culpability by preventing the discovery 
of a death. This analysis goes too far. 
When determining the group of persons that a statute applies against for this purpose, the 
focus must remain solely on the requirement to report. See Byers, 402 U.S. at 429 (“In order to 
invoke the privilege it is necessary to show that the compelled disclosures will themselves 
10 
confront the claimant with ‘substantial hazards of self-incrimination.’” (emphasis added)). The 
reporting requirement of section 19-4301A is found in the first sentence of the first subsection:  
Where any death occurs which would be subject to investigation by the coroner 
under section 19-4301(1), Idaho Code, the person who finds or has custody of the 
body shall promptly notify either the coroner, who shall notify the appropriate law 
enforcement agency, or a law enforcement officer or agency, which shall notify 
the coroner. 
I.C. § 19-4301A(1). This plain language makes clear that section 19-4301A broadly applies to 
any person who finds or has custody of a body. The intent element under subsection (3) 
prescribes punishment for certain violations of the statute; however, it does not in any way limit 
the scope of persons that must comply with the reporting requirement under subsection (1). With 
that being the case, it cannot be said that the statute targets any specific group, much less a 
highly selective one that is inherently suspect of criminal activity. 
Despite that conclusion, the possibility of clear resolution within the Albertson-Byers 
spectrum is lost when the second criterion regarding the statute’s purpose is considered. The 
State asserts that section 19-4301A is part of a regulatory regime designed to promote coroners’ 
determinations of causes of death. The State points out that the noncriminal purpose of the 
statute was demonstrated by the fishermen who eventually discovered the body and notified law 
enforcement. Like the first criterion, the State argues that the purpose of section 19-4301A aligns 
with Byers. This time that argument is incorrect. 
To start, there is a fundamental difference between section 19-4301A and the hit-and-run 
statute that was at issue in Byers. The California law compelled a driver to provide his name and 
address to “the owner or person in charge” of any property that was damaged in an accident. 402 
U.S. at 426. With this wording, the California Supreme Court concluded that the statute was 
enacted to satisfy civil liabilities originating from automobile accidents. Id. at 430–31. The U.S. 
Supreme Court agreed with this interpretation, and held that the statute was sufficiently 
attenuated from possible criminal culpability. Id.; id. at 456–57 (Harlan, J., concurring in the 
judgment). In contrast, section 19-4301A(1) requires reporting of information directly to “either 
the coroner, who shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency, or a law enforcement 
agency, which shall notify the coroner.” Therefore, unlike the statute in Byers, the plain text of 
section 19-4301A dictates that the reported information must reach law enforcement. 
11 
Any remaining doubt as to the purpose of section 19-4301A is dispelled with review of 
the statute’s legislative history. Subsection (1) constituted the entire statute when it was 
originally enacted in 1961. Act of Mar. 13, 1961, ch. 262, § 3, 1961 Idaho Sess. Laws 459, 461. 
In 2006, the statute was amended to include the pair of punishment provisions under subsections 
(2) and (3). Act of Mar. 30, 2006, ch. 239, § 1, 2006 Sess. Laws 724, 724. Applicable legislative 
committee minutes reveal that the impetus behind the new provisions was a 2004 case in 
Rexburg, Idaho, where the causes of death of a woman and her daughter could not be determined 
due to advanced decomposition because the deaths had occurred approximately three years and a 
year earlier, respectively. H. Judiciary, Rules & Admin. Comm., 58th Leg. 54 (2006). The 
husband and father who had continued to reside with the bodies throughout that time had not 
reported the deaths or otherwise cooperated with law enforcement, and had not been charged 
with a crime at the time of the amendment. Id. at 54–55. This history shows that section 19-
4301A is far from the mere regulatory measure that the State claims it to be. Its original iteration 
may have functioned in this manner; however, the pointed legislative action that amended the 
statute reveals that it is meant to serve, at least in part, as a punishment device when other means 
of imposing criminal sanctions are not available. 
Thus, on its face, the statute fits somewhere between Albertson and Byers: it applies 
against the public at large but carries with it an underlying criminal purpose. Notwithstanding the 
statute’s facial posture, Akins moved the district court to consider section 19-4301A as it applied 
to the facts of her case. The parties debated the same question on appeal. Consideration of those 
facts reveals that we need not resolve today how to square any uncertainty arising from the 
statute’s fit within the Albertson criteria. We conclude that the statute as applied to Akins 
violates her Fifth Amendment privilege. 
In this case, the body was first discovered by persons in a house in Spokane Valley, 
Washington. Section 19-4301A does not reach extraterritorially and therefore it had no 
application when the body was first discovered. I.C. § 19-301(1). Instead, the statute only came 
into effect when Akins crossed the state line and entered Idaho. At that moment, Akins fit the 
category of persons identified under the first sentence of section 19-4301A(1)—namely, as 
charged by the State, she was a person having custody of a body in the State of Idaho. 
Accordingly, Akins was then obligated to report the information required by the statute. She did 
not, and the State’s prosecution under section 19-4301A ensued. 
12 
The problem with this prosecution rests in the information that Akins was at that time 
required to report. The parties agree that at a minimum the language of section 19-4301(1) 
requires reporting of two pieces of information: (1) the existence of a dead body and (2) the 
location of that body. At all times for which the statute was in effect against Akins, the body was 
either in the rear cargo area of the SUV she occupied or in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Unlike the 
fishermen who eventually found the body and notified law enforcement, Akins did not have an 
ability to report her knowledge as to the existence and location of that body without informing 
law enforcement that she had carried it across the state line in an SUV she occupied and disposed 
of it in a lake. To find a threat of self-incrimination, we need to look no further than the fact that 
Akins would have effectively admitted to her commission of the State’s charge of destroying 
evidence pursuant to section 18-2603 if she had reported in compliance with section 19-4301A. 
With this in mind, we find it difficult to invent a more substantial hazard of self-incrimination 
than the one that was actually presented here. As the facts of this case are applied, we hold that 
Akins’s prosecution under the statute would violate her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-
incrimination. 
Although our analysis of section 19-4301A departs from that of the district court, we 
reach the same conclusion. Because we freely reviewed the same question that was at issue 
below, we find it appropriate to use the “right result-wrong-theory” rule to affirm the lower 
court’s dismissal of the charge. State v. Garcia-Rodriguez, 162 Idaho 271, 275–76, 396 P.3d 
700, 704–05 (2017). In so doing, we also emphasize our rejection of the district court’s analysis 
in so far as it could be interpreted as a judgment on the statute’s constitutionality. Our holding 
here does not constitute a broad ruling on the general constitutionality of section 19-4301A, but 
instead is driven by the specific facts of this case. Those facts dictate that the statute’s 
application against the defendant would be unconstitutional. 
IV. 
CONCLUSION 
Based on the foregoing, this Court affirms the decision of the district court to grant 
Akins’s motion to dismiss. 
 
Chief Justice BURDICK, Justices HORTON, BEVAN, and Justice Pro Tem MEDEMA 
CONCUR.