Opinion ID: 2622875
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Was the Defendant's Trial Counsel Ineffective When Laying the Foundation for the Testimony of the Expert Witness?

Text: On May 18, 2005, the district court issued an opinion rejecting the Defendant's challenge to the constitutionality of Idaho's statutory rape law. The court concluded that the Defendant had not provided any reliable or valid evidence from which to undermine the conclusions drawn by this Court in State v. LaMere, 103 Idaho 839, 843, 655 P.2d 46, 50 (1982). On June 8, 2005, the Defendant filed a motion asking the district court to reconsider that opinion. In that motion, the Defendant also gave notice that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to lay a proper foundation for the opinion testimony of the Psychologist. The district court ruled that Defendant's counsel had not been ineffective in that regard, and the Defendant challenges that ruling on appeal. He argues, Either there was proper foundation or counsel was ineffective. The third option is that the expert witness simply lacked sufficient, facts upon which to base the opinion, which is what the district court held. In this case, the Psychologist admitted that there were no scientific studies evaluating whether Idaho's or any other state's statutory rape laws had any impact on teenage pregnancies. He therefore could not express an opinion that they did not.