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

Heading: The Right To Confront and Test Evidence at the Sentencing Hearing

Text: Porter alleges that Idaho's capital punishment scheme deprives defendants of rights guaranteed by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 13 of the Idaho Constitution because the scheme precludes defendants from confronting witnesses at the sentencing proceeding. Porter, however, provided no authority in support of his contention and failed to argue why this Court should overrule prior cases that found the statutory scheme constitutional. Therefore, we uphold State v. Hoffman, 123 Idaho 638, 646-47, 851 P.2d 934, 942-43 (1993), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1012, 114 S.Ct. 1387, 128 L.Ed.2d 61 (1994), and Charboneau, 116 Idaho at 145-47, 774 P.2d at 315-17, both of which recognize the constitutionality of allowing the district court to rely on a wider range of evidence during the sentencing phase of a trial than the adjudication phase.