Opinion ID: 1189791
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: spalding's testimony

Text: Martinez argues that Spalding should have been precluded from testifying against him because she is his common-law wife. Martinez relies on a ruling made by the district court in 1980, when he was initially charged in this murder, when a challenge to the competency of Spalding to testify was made. According to Martinez, at that time the district court ruled that Spalding's testimony was not admissible because I.C. § 19-3002 prohibited a wife from testifying against her husband without his consent. Martinez argues that he is still the common-law husband of Spalding and that based on the district court's 1980 ruling precluding her testimony, the prosecution should have been collaterally estopped from presenting Spalding's testimony against him. The trial court rejected Martinez' attempt to preclude Spalding's testimony based on her alleged status as his common-law wife and permitted her to testify. The court based its ruling on two grounds. First, the court found that, at the time of the murder, Spalding was married to someone else, based on a divorce decree before it showing that Spalding did not receive a divorce from her previous husband until June 29, 1979, two days after the murder involved in this case. The court found that Spalding was not married to Martinez while she was married to someone else. Second, the trial court held that Rule 601 of the Idaho Rules of Evidence removed any incompetency of a spouse to testify, except to the extent provided for in Rule 504 regarding confidential communications during marriage. The court noted that Rule 601 conflicted with I.C. § 19-3002, involving incompetence, but held that under Rule 1102 of the Rules of Evidence, I.C. § 19-3002 was of no force or effect and that Rule 601 had done away with I.C. § 19-3002. [1] We find no error in the court's admission of Spalding's testimony. First, Martinez has presented this court with no viable proof of or argument that the trial court's determination that Spalding was married to someone else until June 29, 1979, was incorrect. The only evidence submitted by him in the record is his affidavit to the effect that there was a common law marriage between Spalding and him at the time of the alleged murder which had not changed through divorce. This affidavit, however, cannot refute the evidence before the trial court that Spalding was married to someone else until June 29, 1979. Second, we hold that Rule 601 of the Idaho Rules of Evidence repealed I.C. § 19-3002. [2] Competency is an evidentiary matter over which this Court exercises control under the Rules of Evidence. Thus, Rule 601 clearly takes precedence over I.C. § 19-3002 by virtue of Idaho Rule of Evidence 1102. [3] See also State v. Zimmerman, 121 Idaho 971, 974, 829 P.2d 861, 864 (1992) (statutory provisions, to the extent they are evidentiary and in conflict with Idaho Rules of Evidence, are of no force or effect); State v. Griffith, 97 Idaho 52, 539 P.2d 604 (1975) (legislature need not repeal statutes made unnecessary by, or in conflict with, rules promulgated by Supreme Court governing procedure). We also reject Martinez' collateral estoppel argument. The 1980 decision was not a final judgment from which there was a right to appeal which could warrant collateral estoppel effect. State v. Powell, 120 Idaho 707, 819 P.2d 561 (1991). The ruling was simply an evidentiary ruling which could have been changed at any time.