Court Opinion

ID: 9618493
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:13:10.252536+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:29.908987
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
Petition for rehearing having been granted in the above entitled cause and the case rebriefed and reargued,
THE MAJORITY adheres to the views expressed in the Court’s original opinion.
Appellant Owens on rehearing has raised for the first time the additional issue that the trial court’s instruction to the jury that “[e]very person is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his act” requires reversal of her conviction. A similar instruction, in Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), decided after Owens’ trial and initial appeal, was held to impermissibly permit the jury in a criminal case to presume intent, contrary to the traditional due process requirement that a criminal defendant be presumed innocent until guilt is proven by the state beyond a reasonable doubt. Owens, however, did not object to the instruction at trial and, pursuant to Idaho law, must be deemed to have waived any objection to the instruction. I.C.R. 30; State v. Collinsworth, 96 Idaho 910, 539 P.2d 263 (1975). “The States, if they wish, may be able to insulate past convictions by enforcing the normal and valid rule that failure to object to a jury instruction is a waiver of any claim of error. See, e. g., Fed.Rule Crim.Proc. 30.” Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432 U.S. 233, 244, n.8, 97 S.Ct. 2339, 2345, n.8, 53 L.Ed.2d 306 (1977).