Court Opinion

ID: 9622047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:11:32.539882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:19.548623
License: Public Domain

BOYLE, Justice,
concurring in the result and specially concurring.
I concur with the result of the majority opinion. I write specially, however, to express my views on why the conviction in this case must be vacated and the case remanded for a new trial.
This consolidated case involves two appeals which are before this Court. The first appeal, No. 16630 filed September 17, 1986, is a direct appeal from the judgment of conviction. The second appeal, No. 17249 filed December 11,1987, is an appeal from the denial of post-conviction relief by the district court. The two appeals were consolidated by order of the Court on January 18,1988, leaving all issues open for our decision.
On January 24, 1990, this Court issued an opinion vacating the conviction of defendant and remanding for a new trial on the basis that the defendant’s right to a jury trial had been abridged by the expert’s testimony and that this resulted in fundamental error requiring reversal. The State of Idaho filed a petition for rehearing which was granted on March 27, 1990 and this opinion followed. However, I am troubled about basing today’s decision solely on the doctrine originally enunciated in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Because all issues were left open for this Court’s determination on rehearing, I write separately to indicate my rationale supporting today’s decision.
I concur with the majority holding on the meaning of Rule 704. An expert’s opinion on the “ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact” does not include the weighing of evidence to form an opinion as to who the guilty party is in a criminal trial. I.R.E. 704. The determination of guilt or innocence in criminal matters is within the exclusive province of the jury. While an expert may, as here, testify that in his opinion a fire was “deliberately set” and that it was “a case of arson,” these opinions are permissible because they are the “ultimate issues” within the expert’s expertise as contemplated under Rule 704. However, if we allow an expert on the cause of fires to weigh the evidence and testify as to who he believes is guilty of the crime of arson, we would be allowing the “expert” to leave the realm of his expertise and invade the province of the jury. The jury alone has the responsibility to weigh the evidence and conclude the “ultimate issue” of guilt or innocence.
Like the other members of the Court, I am troubled by the issue of the ineffective assistance of counsel. As discussed in the majority opinion, defense counsel did not object to the expert testifying on the ultimate issue of guilt. This was based on the defense strategy that the fire was set by the defendant by accident. This strategy was apparently formulated on the mistaken understanding that Rule 704 allowed an expert to testify on the ultimate issue of guilt in a criminal trial. Defense counsel testified at the post-conviction hearing that “any objections that I had, I believe were taken care of by Rule 704, which was in effect at that time, making questions hav*58ing to do with ultimate fact not objectionable.”
While defense counsel was incorrect in his understanding of Rule 704, there was-some precedent for this interpretation. In a civil case involving arson, a police expert was allowed to testify regarding who the chief suspects were in the criminal investigation. Pacheco v. Safeco Ins. Co., 116 Idaho 794, 780 P.2d 116 (1989). Pacheco states:
In addition to there being no prejudicial error, admission of the investigator’s testimony also complied with the requirements of Idaho Rules of Evidence 702, 703, 704, and 705 in that he carefully described the evidence relied upon when he stated his opinion as to the cause of the fire.
116 Idaho at 798, 780 P.2d at 120. While I would interpret Pacheco’s discussion of Rule 704 as dicta,3 I am uneasy with the Court’s conclusion that the ease should be remanded solely because defense counsel was inadequate, especially when the status of Rule 704 was unclear before this current opinion and when, under the circumstances, counsel’s defense strategy of an accidental fire may have been all that was possible.
On the other hand, I am also dissatisfied with the view that defense counsel’s representation was adequate because counsel’s lack of objection was purely one of strategy. Even errors in strategy can be so grave that they represent circumstances in which an issue of ineffective counsel exists. This Court stated in Gibson v. State, 110 Idaho 631, 635, 718 P.2d 283 (1986), that “when counsel’s trial strategy decisions are made upon the basis of inadequate preparation, ignorance of the relevant law, or other shortcomings capable of objective evaluation, the defendant may well have been denied the competent assistance of counsel.” Because defense counsel in this case was "ignoran[t] of the relevant law” and his faulty strategy was based on this misperception, it does not seem proper to say that defendant’s representation was adequate.
However, as Chief Justice Bakes indicates in his dissent, a claim of ineffective counsel must show that “but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 669, 104 S.Ct. at 2055-56. As the dissent clearly points out, the district court concluded that the expert’s impermissible statements were probably harmless error.4 While, after a careful review of the record, I join the majority of this Court in concluding otherwise, I am of the opinion that reasonable minds can differ on the harmfulness of the error in this particular case where the evidence against the defendant was very damaging. Regardless of who is correct on the harmfulness of this error, the point is that no one really knows the impact the expert’s assertions of guilt had on the individual jurors. Therefore, rather than rest our decision solely on whether the ineffectiveness of counsel altered the ultimate result in this case, I prefer to rest our decision on other grounds as well.
*59In my mind, the judgment of conviction must be vacated, not solely on the ground that defense counsel was inadequate, but also on the ground originally raised by the defendant and addressed by this Court in its initial decision — that allowing the expert to testify as to who was guilty of the crime was error so fundamental that it contravenes the defendant’s right to a fair trial. When fundamental error occurs in a trial, it is irrelevant whether that error would have altered the ultimate verdict of the jury. In my view, the combined effects of ineffective assistance of counsel and the doctrine of fundamental error are the real reason why the case should be retried.
In Smith v. State, 94 Idaho 469, 491 P.2d 733 (1971), this Court accepted the following definition of fundamental error:
Error that is fundamental must be such error as goes to the foundation or basis of the defendant’s rights or must go to the foundation of the case or take from the defendant a right which was essential to his defense and which no court could or ought to prevent him to waive. Each case will of necessity, under such a rule, stand on its own merits. Our of the facts in each case will arise the law.
94 Idaho at 475 n. 13, 491 P.2d at 739 n. 13 (quoting State v. Garcia, 46 N.M. 302, 309, 128 P.2d 459, 462 (1942)); see also State v. Bingham, 116 Idaho 415, 423, 776 P.2d 424, 432 (1989); State v. Lankford, 113 Idaho 688, 693 n. 2, 747 P.2d 710, 715 n. 2 (1987); State v. Cariaga, 95 Idaho 900, 523 P.2d 32 (1974); State v. Haggard, 94 Idaho 249, 486 P.2d 260 (1971). Under this rule, the defendant’s right to a fair trial does not permit the State to allow an expert to testify that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged. This is in essence what occurred in the instant case.
When an attorney allows a fundamental error into evidence, the fact that the attorney fails to object to that error is of no consequence. The following language concerning the fundamental error doctrine from State v. Haggard is instructive:
The appellant contends that he was denied due process and deprived of a fair trial because the prosecuting attorney elicited at trial that Haggard did not tell the judge of his alibi at the preliminary hearing. Appellant maintains that this information should not have been made available for the jury’s consideration and by so doing the lower court deprived him of a fair trial. Counsel for defendant failed to raise an objection to the cross-examination at the time of trial and ordinarily this Court would not consider this assignment of error. However, the obligation of the state to see that defendant receive a fair trial is primary and fundamental. In case of fundamental error in a criminal case the Supreme Court may consider the same even though no objection had been made at time of trial. We agree with appellant that the cross-examination of the defendant (appellant) regarding his failure to testify at the preliminary hearing deprived appellant of a fair trial and was a denial of due process.
94 Idaho at 251, 486 P.2d at 262 (citations omitted) (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).
I am of the opinion that Haggard and its progeny set forth the proper analysis that requires reversal for the fundamental error which occurred during the trial. Because the introduction of the expert’s opinion on the ultimate issue of guilt is so damaging and is beyond the expertise of the witness, I concur with the decision of the Court. I concur specially, however, to indicate that the conviction must be vacated and remanded for a new trial not solely because of defense counsel’s inadequate representation, but because a fundamental error occurred at trial in allowing an opinion which essentially determines innocence or guilt of the defendant.
BISTLINE and JOHNSON, JJ., concur.

. As I interpret Pacheco, the Court in that opinion concluded that judgement should be affirmed by relying on the harmlessness of the prejudicial error caused by allowing the expert’s testimony into evidence. By indicating that the evidence was not prejudicial error, the Court could not simultaneously have held that the testimony was not error under Rule 704. In any event, Pacheco does not implicate the opinion in the instant case because Pacheco was a civil case, whereas this is a criminal case. Moreover, the expert’s opinion expressed in Pacheco is vastly different from the absolute opinion allowed in the instant case in which the expert testified that the defendant "deliberately” started the fire. Finally, the language from Pacheco quoted above only found the expert's testimony “as to the cause of the fire” permissible under Rule 704, a conclusion with which I agree.

. Chief Justice Bakes also concludes that the State’s expert and defense counsel essentially said the same thing and therefore the error could not have been harmful. However, taken together, the expert not only testified that the fire was set by defendant, as defense counsel acknowledged, but that the defendant deliberately set fire to the home and therefore was guilty of the crime of arson. As everyone, including the State, agrees, such testimony is also error because it is clearly beyond an expert’s expertise and thus contravenes Rule 704. Accordingly, the testimony of the expert was not the same as the State asserts and could have been harmful.