Court Opinion

ID: 9797753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:28:42.319505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:58:13.836706
License: Public Domain

Judge Pro Tern SCHWARTZMAN
Specially Concurring.
While I concur in the Court’s opinion herein, I feel constrained to write separately on two major points because they raise concerns for future cases.
A. The Reasonable Doubt Instruction
I am “willing to act” in giving my vote for affirmance, but do so not “without hesitation” and not with the “moral certainty” that this instruction fully and best embraces the state’s heavy burden of proof. If this instruction passes constitutional muster, it does so at the bargain basement floor of constitutionality, and risks reducing the level of certainty required for conviction to that of buying a cheap house or expensive ear. I am troubled by the collective dilution/omission of constitutional words of art — “imaginary” doubt, “hesitate to act” and “moral certainty.” Nevertheless, given the case law precedents set forth in the majority opinion and State v. Sheahan, Docket No. 29121, 139 Idaho 267, 77 P.3d 956, 2003 WL 21782664 (Aug. 4, 2003), I am “firmly convinced” that this instruction will not be overturned by higher judicial authority. See also State v. Merwin, 131 Idaho 642, 962 P.2d 1026 (1998).
However, I would take a stronger tone than that articulated by the Idaho Supreme Court in Sheahan, “encouraging” trial courts to “avoid unnecessary appeals and controversy by utilizing the instruction (I.C.J.I.103) that has an accepted history defining the burden the state bears.” Rather, I would exhort the trial bench NOT to use this instruction, period, or otherwise risk reversal in our appellate supervisory/regulatory role over the trial courts.
B. Prosecutorial Misconduct
I fully agree that the state committed prosecutorial misconduct in its closing argument. The highlights of this misconduct should at least be quoted for future reference and enlightenment:
Yet, on the other hand, there’s a lot of motivation for Mr. Kuhn to lie about what happened. And lie he did. He lied and he lied and he lied. He lied to you and he lied to the people at the other hearing. And let me tell you about his lies in terms of today and back with the people at the other healing.
And in closing rebuttal:
Now, a lot of those things are different from what he told you folks today. And the difference there is called perjury, as [defense counsel] has brought up. It is very clear-cut perjury. And you have to *718ask yourself why would a thief, why would a man who has been convicted of theft four or five times, go and commit perjury. The answer is fairly simple. It’s because he did the aets that he has been accused of. No one commits perjury for any other reason.
Now there is another thing that you need to consider when you think about his lies, his perjury/ You need to consider how he ran.
I could go on and on and on about his lies back to the other people in here. But, you can only come to one conclusion here, that his lies were for a reason and that’s to evade responsibility for what he did.
And I would submit to you that he is not an honest person and he is a thief and that he is a liar. And he has committed perjury, and he has also committed two other offenses, and that’s lewd conduct and sexual abuse of a minor. It is time he took responsibility for those crimes. The only way that’s going to happen is if you folks agree that he is guilty of that. And I’m going to ask you that you go back in that room, eat your lunch and that you find him guilty of both counts. Thanks.
There is a fundamental difference, in my opinion, between using the common epithet “liar,” as opposed to accusing someone of perjury, a major felony charge and independent crime, which comes under the jurisdiction of the very prosecuting attorney making the allegation in his closing argument. Such rhetoric carries with it the implied assertion that the defendant has committed yet another crime and the prosecutor’s personal belief therein, together with the possibility that he will institute independent criminal charges when the trial is over and the jury has done its duty in convicting this liar/perjurer. At the very least, these comments are more than troubling and less than artful. See State v. Lovelass, 133 Idaho 160, 169, 983 P.2d 233, 242 (Ct.App.1999).
While the argumentative misconduct here tends to generate heat rather than diffuse light, and relies on the old prosecutorial canard that all state’s witnesses tell the truth and all defendants lie, the comments do not rise to the level of fundamental error. It would, however, behoove defense counsel to rise from his/her chair during this type of overzealous' argumentation and offer an objection to give the trial judge an opportunity to say, “Enough, already,” and correct any error; rather than having to rely on the doctrine of fundamental error for purposes of appeal.