Court Opinion

ID: 9786822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:03:19.36337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:49.017136
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice TROUT,
dissenting.
Because I believe that Zaitseva committed only one crime, the possession of checks to be forged, I must respectfully dissent from the Court’s decision. According to the Court, Zaitseva can be charged with fourteen counts of violating I.C. § 18-3605 because the statute uses the word “check” rather than “cheek or checks.” However, a charge of multiple counts of violating a statute is appropriate only where the actus reus prohibited by the statute has been committed more than once. State v. Major, 111 Idaho 410, 415, 725 P.2d 115, 120 (1986), (citing Wilkoff v. Superior Court, 38 Cal.3d 345, 211 Cal.Rptr. 742, 696 P.2d 134, 137 (1985)). In addition, the test adopted by this Court to determine whether a course of criminal conduct should be divided or aggregated asks “were the items possessed as a part of ‘a single incident or pursuant to a common scheme or plan reflecting a single continuing [criminal] impulse or intent.’” Major, 111 Idaho at 414, 725 P.2d at 120 (citing State v. Lloyd, 103 Idaho 382, 383, 647 P.2d 1254, 1255 (1982)).
In Major, this Court was faced with the question of whether possession of multiple items of stolen property which were l’ecovered both on and outside the Nez Perce Indian Reservation constituted a single offense or two separate offenses. This Court determined Major committed only one offense of possession of stolen property where the property was stolen at the same time from one individual, and even though one item was pawned separately and the stolen items were recovered both on and off the reservation, the possession of the items was found to be part of “a single incident” and “pursuant to a common scheme or plan reflecting a single, continuing [criminal] impulse or intent____” Id.
Applying the Major test to the facts presented here, Zaitseva should only have been charged with one count of forgery. Zaitseva was charged with violating I.C. § 18-3605, specifically, with being in possession of blank or unfinished checks with the intent to fill out those checks in order to defraud someone. Thus, the actus reus of the crime is the possession. Clearly, all of the checks were possessed at the same time and, according to the district judge, appeared to be part of a single plan to forge checks from the company listed on the checks. Because Zaitseva possessed the forged cheeks pursuant to a common scheme or plan reflecting a single, continuing criminal impulse or intent, Zaitseva should have only been charged with one count.