Court Opinion

ID: 9536428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:59:48.686913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:29.574321
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Regarding Part II, the Court’s opinion concludes that “in this case we are persuaded that the ‘some evidence rule’ formulated by the Supreme Court in [Superintendent, Mass. Corr. Institution v.] Hill is the appropriate one for us to adopt in prison discipline cases.” Since we are following the standards set down by the United States Supreme Court in Hill, it is unnecessary dicta to “conclude that the scope [of the due process clause of Art. 1, § 13 of the Idaho Constitution] is not necessarily the same” as the due process clause of the fifth amendment of the United States Constitution. As the Court’s opinion points out, we have previously held otherwise. State v. Peterson, 81 Idaho 233, 236, 340 P.2d 444, 446 (1959). We have also held that the search and seizure clause of the Idaho Constitution is to be interpreted similarly to the search and seizure clause of the fourth amendment. State v. Cowen, 104 Idaho 649, 662 P.2d 230 (1983); State v. Oropeza, 97 Idaho 387, 545 P.2d 475 (1976).
If we are going to reconsider our prior decision in State v. Peterson, 81 Idaho 233, 340 P.2d 444 (1959), which held that the due process clause of the Idaho Constitution is not substantially different from the due process clause of the United States Constitution, we should wait until we have a case before us where there might arguably be a difference and have the issue briefed and argued. As the Court’s opinion recognizes, this is not an appropriate case for such a claim to be considered.
I concur as to Part III of the Court’s opinion which holds that the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), requires this matter to be remanded for new findings concerning the evidence which the hearing officer considered to support his decision.
With regard to Part IV of the Court’s opinion, I am concerned about the vagueness of the Court’s rejection of the reasons for failure to call the third inmate because he had been transferred “somewhere else.” There have to be reasonable limits on the requirement of the State to move prisoners around at these kinds of administrative disciplinary hearings. Unfortunately the record in this case does not spell out the location of the prisoner witness or any difficulties involved in trying to obtain his attendance. Accordingly, we have no record to evaluate the State’s failure to produce that prisoner witness at the hearing. Since this matter must be remanded, that can be more clearly set out in the record. However, in my view, if a prisoner witness is not reasonably available in the same compound, then in the absence of some showing that the witness was transferred out for the purpose of preventing his testifying, I believe it would be unreasonable to require the State to incur the hazard or the expense of having to move prisoner witnesses from site to site. In any event, there should be some clear showing that the witness was critical to the inmate’s case before a due process violation showing has been made.