Opinion ID: 1118589
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: statement of facts relating to evidentiary errors.

Text: Defense counsel objected to the Court considering other criminal allegations which were dismissed or hearsay evidence relating to bad acts by the Defendant. Nevertheless, the prosecution presented, and the court considered, many bare allegations before and during sentencing. For example, the prosecutor questioned the Defendant about stolen guns and stolen snowmobiles. Defense counsel objected to using the information the Defendant had given to a police officer under a cooperation agreement to prejudice him at sentencing. The Court allowed such questions. The prosecutor made hearsay/opinion statements without presenting evidence, such as: `And there's a lot of other snowmobiles that he's obliterated.' `I think that the serial numbers were altered as a pattern of criminal activity of stolen snowmobiles.' `... and it's my understanding that he admitted those facts [relating to insurance fraud] to Sergeant Bunderson on the 24th of August.' Furthermore, the Court evidently considered the objectional statements in determining the sentence of Defendant, as evidenced by these statements: `... it appears to the Court that this is a much more serious matter than the nature of the offenses to which the defendant pled guilty to. He's admitted to having five snow-machines that he knew were stolen with altered serial numbers in Blackfoot.... And it looks to me that the presentence investigation report also indicates that this isn't just a simple case of altering serial numbers on snowmachines. They indicated there's a very disturbing pattern here that emerges and involves a theft of snowmobiles which were subsequently sold after the serial numbers had been altered.' `... I want to emphasize again, there's much more, and the pre-sentence investigator indicates, there's much more than meets the eye here in this 'case, and people are entitled to have their property not taken from them, especially recreational property that does sit out and maybe it's more easy than other things to steal.' `As far as I'm concerned, you've entered pleas of guilty to certain criminal conduct. As far as I'm concerned, you've also been engaged in other criminal activity that you didn't plead guilty to.'