Opinion ID: 1124985
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Refusal To Admit Certain Evidence

Text: Porter specifically challenges the district court's refusal to admit a mitigation report. The mitigation report contained twenty-three categories of documents, several of which were objectionable on the grounds of lack of foundation, hearsay, competence, and relevance. Although the State offered to address the admissibility of each document individually, the district court refused to admit the entire report. Porter seems to argue that, because the district court admitted and considered hearsay evidence at the sentencing hearing, it should have admitted hearsay evidence at the post-conviction relief proceeding. Additionally, in a more general sense, he seems to point to the court's evidentiary rulings in an effort to demonstrate that the district court was biased or prejudiced at the post-conviction relief proceeding. Porter's arguments, however, are flawed because he fails to recognize that the Idaho Rules of Evidence do not govern the admissibility of evidence at a sentencing hearing, and, thus, a sentencing court may consider a wide range of evidence that would not necessarily be admissible at trial. See I.R.E. 101(e)(3); Charboneau, 116 Idaho at 148-49, 774 P.2d at 318-19. We believe the district court's ruling was grounded in the applicable evidentiary rules and appears to have been well reasoned. Therefore, we affirm the district court's refusal to admit the mitigation report. Furthermore, because the district court did not err when it refused to admit the mitigation report into evidence, we conclude that Porter has failed to demonstrate that the district court's ruling was based on actual prejudice against Porter. See Martinez v. State, 126 Idaho 813, 892 P.2d 488 (Ct.App.1995).