Opinion ID: 1124985
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Right to a Jury at Sentencing

Text: Porter asserts that Idaho's capital punishment scheme violates the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Sections 7 and 13 of the Idaho Constitution because the sentencing scheme allegedly deprives him of a jury determination of aggravating circumstances. However, he argues only that the statutory scheme violates his rights to due process under the United States and Idaho Constitutions and that it results in cruel and unusual punishment, as proscribed by the federal and state constitutions. The United States Supreme Court has concluded definitively that the federal constitution does not require a jury determination of aggravating circumstances. Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 460, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 3162, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984). Additionally, this Court consistently has rejected arguments similar to Porter's and has upheld judicial determination of aggravating circumstances, as consistent with the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 7 of the Idaho Constitution. Charboneau, 116 Idaho at 145-47, 774 P.2d at 315-17. See also Hoffman, 123 Idaho at 643, 851 P.2d at 939; State v. Pizzuto, 119 Idaho at 769, 810 P.2d at 707; State v. Paz, 118 Idaho 542, 552-53, 798 P.2d 1, 11-12 (1990), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1259, 111 S.Ct. 2911, 115 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1991), overruled on other grounds by State v. Card, 121 Idaho 425, 825 P.2d 1081 (1991).