1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO
ZANE JACK FIELDS,

Petitioner

- Appellant,

v.

STATE OF IDAHO,

Respondent.

_______________________________________ STATE OF IDAHO,

Plaintiff

- Respondent,

v.

ZANE JACK FIELDS,

Def endant

- Appellant. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Docket No. 35679

Boise, June 2010 Term
2010 Opinion No. 74

Filed: June 30, 2010
Stephen W. Kenyon, Clerk

Docket No. 36704

Appeal from the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District, State of Idaho, Ada County. Hon. Thomas F. Neville, District Judge. District court decision denying sentence relief, affirmed.

Nevin , Benjamin, McKay & Bartlett , Boise, for appellant. Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General, Boise, for respondent.

_____________ _____________________ SUBMITTED ON THE BRIEFS2

BURDICK, Justice This case comes before this Court on appeal from the district court’s Memorandum Decision and Order denying sentencing relief to Zane Fields based upon Fields’s Petition for
Post

- Conviction Relief and related motions. In the single issue presented on appeal, Fields argues that , following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Danforth v. Minnesota , 552 U.S. 264 (2008)

- finding that the federal retroactivity doctrine does not limit the authorit y of state courts to retroactively apply rules of law for state criminal convictions

- this Court should find that Ring v. Arizona , 536 U.S. 584 (2002), has retroactive application under Idaho law. We previously addressed this question of law in Rhoades v . State , Nos. 35187, 34198, 34199, 2010 WL 937272 (Idaho Mar. 17, 2010), and find that Fields has raised no new argument here. We therefore affirm the dismissal of Fields’s Petition for Post

- Conviction Relief and related motions.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURA L BACKGROUND
Fields was c onvicted of first

- degree felony m urder by a jury. After the district court judge determined that the State had proven three statutory aggravating factors, the district court judge sentenced Fields to death on March 7, 1991, in lin e with I.C. § 19

- 2515, which governed at the time. Fields’s subsequent appeal, petition for writ of certiorari, and application for post

conviction relief were all denied. State v. Fields , 127 Idaho 904, 908 P.2d 1211 (1995), cert. denied , Fields v. Idah o , 516 U.S. 922 (1995), dismissal aff’d
, Fields v. State , 135 Idaho 286, 17 P.3d 230 (2000). Following final judgment in Fields’s case on direct review, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Ring v. Arizona , 536 U.S. 584 (2002), on June 2 4, 2002, requiring that a jury, rather than a judge, perform the fact

- finding as to the aggravating circumstances required for the imposition of the death penalty. Within 42 days of the issuance of Ring , on August 1, 2002, Fields filed a Petition for Post

- Conviction Relief or Writ of Habeas Corpus (Fields’s Petition) along with “Motions to Correct Illegal Sentences, to Vacate Sentences of Death and for New Sentencing Trial” (Fields ’s Motions). The State filed its Response and Motion to Dismiss on Septembe r 3, 2002. On August 5, 2008, after extensive briefing and motions back

- and

- forth, the district court issued a Memorandum Decision and Order and accompanying orders dismissing Fields’s Petition and Motions, and granting the State’s Motion to Dismiss, havi ng concluded that Ring is not retroactive ly applied to cases on collateral review, and that said3

petition is expressly barred by I.C. § 19

- 2719. Fields filed timely notices of appeal on September 12, 2008.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
As this Court wrote in Rho ades v. State : “This Court exercises free review over questions of law. Statutory interpretation is a question of law over which this Court exercises free review. The constitutionality of Idaho’s capital sentencing scheme is likewise a question of
law o ver which this Court exercises free review.” Nos. 35187, 34198, 34199, 2010 WL 937272, at *2 (Idaho Mar. 17, 2010) (internal citations omitted).
III. ANALYSIS The question before this Court in the present case is the same question that was before
this Cou rt in Rhoades v. State . Namely, whether

- following the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Danforth v. Minnesota , 552 U.S. 264 (2008)

- Ring v. Arizona , 536 U.S. 584 (2002), should be applied to cases on collateral review under Idaho’s retroactivity doctrine.
Fields states that the only issue he brings before this Court is “whether Idaho’s retroactivity doctrine compels the application of Ring’s acknowledgement of the right to jury
fact

- finding in a capital case to persons whose convictions and sentences were final on June 24, 2002, the date the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Ring. ” Fields argues that Idaho has traditionally employed the three

- prong retroactivity test from
Linkletter v. Walker , 381 U.S. 618 (1965), that this Court should ap ply it here, and that under application of the Linkletter test, Ring should be given retroactive application to cases on collateral review. The State contends that the district court never properly had jurisdiction to consider this case, because I.C. § 19

- 2719 (5) (c) mandates that the case not be given retroactive application or, alternatively, that Idaho should apply the federal retroactivity test created in Teague v. Lane , 489 U.S. 288 (1989), and, under said test, Ring should not be given retroactive
app lication here. Fields argues that I.C. § 19

- 2719(5)(c) violates both the U.S. and Idaho
Constitutions. The positions argued by Fields and the State are identical to those we considered in
Rhoades , where we expressly adopted and applied the Teague test for retroactivity. 2010 WL
937272 at *3. In Rhoades , t his Court found that under the Teague test the rule announced in Ring would not be given retroactive application to cases on collateral review, and therefore declined to address I.C. § 19

- 2719(5)(c). We fully reaffirm the reasoning and analysis of4

Rhoades , and affirm the district court’s decision and order on these grounds. We therefore decline to address the State’s arguments pertaining to I.C. § 19

- 2719(5)(c). 1
IV. CONCLUSION As this Court is presente d with an identical issue and argument here as we had before us
in Rhoades , and as this a pure question of law, we reaffirm our holding in Rhoades

- that Idaho applies the Teague retroactivity test for criminal cases on collateral review, and that under th at

test Ring is not retroactively applied. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of Fields’s requested sentencing relief. W e decline to address the State’s argument s concerning I.C. § 19

- 2719(5)(c).
Chief Justice EISMANN and Justices J. JON ES, W. JONES and KIDWELL, pro tem,
CONCUR.

1 Incidentally, the constitutionality of I.C. § 19

- 2719(5)(c) was addressed by this Court in Stuart v. State , No. 34200, 2010 WL 1838465 (Idaho May 10, 2010).