Court Opinion

ID: 9626191
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:04:58.841528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:23.054364
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
dissenting:
The Court’s opinion today is perplexing. In our original opinion issued on September 26, 1983, this Court affirmed the conviction of the defendant stating that, since “[t]he *950sole question presented on appeal is the alleged unconstitutionality of I.C. § 18-6605 ... [and since] [t]his question was not presented to the district court as a challenge to the amended information, ... we accordingly decline to address a question which was not urged below____” We then affirmed the judgment of conviction.
Today, on rehearing, the Court vacates the judgment of conviction on an issue that was not only not raised in the district court below, it was not raised in this Court on appeal. The respondent, who loses as a result of the Court’s action today, has never even had an opportunity to brief or argue the issue decided by the Court today. One wonders how the Court can state in today’s opinion that it is “still convinced that we were correct in [refusing] to decide a constitutional issue which has not been passed upon by the district court ...,” and at the same time assert that it is correct in vacating this judgment of conviction on an issue which was neither raised before the district court nor before this Court on appeal.
In my view, the appropriate way to handle the withdrawal of the guilty plea by the defendant would be the same way we handled the constitutional issue in our original opinion filed September 26, 1983. We should merely note “that the defendant is not prejudiced from raising the alleged unconstitutionality of the statute or the question of his right to move to withdraw his guilty plea because of a failed plea bargain in a post conviction relief proceeding.” State v. Hernandez, 1983 Opinion No. 132, filed September 26, 1983.
I would affirm the judgment of conviction.
HUNTLEY, J., concurs.