Court Opinion

ID: 9844818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:09:39.58519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:43.962973
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice
concurring, concurring in the result, and dissenting.
I. THE DEATH PENALTY
This Justice wholeheartedly agrees with the majority’s conclusion that James Pratt should not be put to death. My disagreement with the majority is over how it gets to that result. The correct holding is that James Pratt is not eligible for the death penalty because he did not commit first degree murder. Accordingly, I dissent from parts II and III which hold to the contrary.
There are six statutory definitions of first degree murder. I.C. § 18-4003(a)-(f). James Pratt was found guilty of committing alternatives (b) (murder of a peace officer or executive officer who was acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty) and (d) (murder committed in the perpetration of, or an attempt to perpetrate certain enumerated crimes). He committed neither.
A. A United States Forest Service Officer is not a Peace Officer nor an Executive Officer for purposes of I.C. § 19-1003(b).
The majority’s analysis in this section of its opinion appears to be somewhat bizarre. What they hold is this: United States Forest Service officers are not included in any statutory definition of the term peace officer found in the Idaho Code, therefore, a fortiori, United States Forest Service officers must be peace officers for purposes of I.C. § 19-4003(b). Mr. Noah Webster likely would be surprised, as was I, on observing the majority’s stunning revelation as to the proper use of definitions. It has always been my belief that the absence of a term from a definition meant it was not included therein.
In my view, the proper analysis as to the peace officer question is this: 1) The term peace officer is not defined in the first degree murder statute; 2) the definitions of peace officer which appear in other portions of the Idaho Code do not include United States Forest Service officers; 3) therefore, the first degree murder statute is, at best, ambiguous as to whether a United States Forest Service officer is a peace officer; and 4) whereas under the rule of lenity criminal statutes are strictly construed, State v. Sivak, 119 Idaho 320, 325, 806 P.2d 413, 418 (1990), 5) it must be concluded that United States Forest Service officers are not peace officers within the meaning of I.C. § 19-4003(b).
Additionally, Jacobson was not an executive officer under I.C. § 19-4003(b). Again, that term is not defined in the statute. However, art. 4 § 1 of the Idaho Constitution lists the executive officers of the State as the “governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, attorney general and supervisor of public education.” Jacobson did not hold any of these offices and therefore was not an executive officer *572within the purposes and scope of the statute. Furthermore, I.C. § 19-4003(b) does not apply to federal executive officers, nor does it purport to. Such officers are given no mention in the statute. Even were federal executive officers included, Jacobson did not hold a position of executive authority in the federal government.
Brett Jacobson was a loyal, dutiful, steadfast, well-respected employee of the United States Forest Service, but he did not hold a position that is unambiguously included 'within I.C. § 19 — 4003(b). Accordingly, the rule of lenity mandates a holding that he was neither a peace officer nor an executive officer for purposes of the statute. Accordingly, James Pratt did not commit first degree murder under alternative (b) of I.C. § 19-4003.
B. Jacobson was not Acting in the Lawful Discharge of an Official Duty at the Time he was Shot.
A second reason for holding that James Pratt did not commit alternative (b) first degree murder is that Jacobson, when shot, was not acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty.13 This is so because: 1) United States Forest Service officers lack the authority to assist local law enforcement officers outside national forest land, and 2) Jacobson’s tracking of the Pratts took place entirely outside national forest land.
Jacobson was assisting the Bonner County Sheriff pursuant to a “Cooperative Agreement” between Bonner County and the United States Department of Agriculture, of which the United States Forest Service is a division. That agreement provides that the United States Forest Service agrees
[t]o provide support and cooperation to Bonner County in the enforcement of State and local laws on lands and water within or a part of any unit of the National Forest System.
The United States Forest Service was permitted to enter into this cooperative agreement by 16 U.S.C. § 551a, which was passed to provide relief to state and local law enforcement personnel because of the extra duties resulting from visitors coming onto the lands and waters within boundaries of national forest lands. Senate Report (Agriculture and Forest Committee) No. 92-312 (1971). That statute states that
[t]he Secretary of Agriculture, in connection with the administration and regulation of the use and occupancy of the national forest and national grasslands, is authorized to cooperate with any State or political subdivision thereof, on lands which are within or part of any unit of the national forest system, in the enforcement or supervision of the laws or ordinances of a State or subdivision thereof.
Thus, under the agreement between the United States Forest Service and Bonner County as well as the federal statute which authorized such agreements, Jacobson’s authority was limited to those lands which were within or a part of a national forest. It necessarily follows that any action taken outside that territory is outside the lawful duties of a United States Forest Service officer. The trial testimony and exhibits show that Jacobson assisted in tracking the Pratts on land that was neither a part of nor within any unit of the national forest. Therefore, Jacobson, even assuming he was a peace officer, was not acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty. To the contrary, he was acting outside the jurisdiction which had been carefully prescribed by the United States Congress. Consequently, James Pratt is not guilty of alternative (b) first degree murder and thus not eligible for the death penalty on that ground.
C. The Killing did not Occur in the Perpetration of, or in an Attempt to Perpetrate, the Robbery, Burglary, or Kidnapping.
James Pratt argues that he did not commit alternative (d) first degree murder (felony-*573murder) because the shooting did not take place during the perpetration of any of the predicate felonies. He is correct.
As the word perpetration is not a term of art, the Court should give it its common meaning. Oregon Short Line R.R. v. Pfost, 58 Idaho 559, 572-73, 27 P.2d 877, 882 (1934); see also Sutherland Statutory Construction § 47.28 (5th Ed). The common meaning of perpetration is “commission.” Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, 876 (1988). Thus, the scope of the felony murder rule is limited to any killings which occurred in conjunction with the actual commission of one of the enumerated felonies, not during the escape thereafter. In this case, the shooting of Jacobson was not in the perpetration of the felonies because it did not take place at the scene of the other crimes and because it did not occur until twenty hours after the other crimes were committed.
State v. Fetterly, 109 Idaho 766, 710 P.2d 1202 (1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 870, 107 S.Ct. 239, 93 L.Ed.2d 164 (1986), the only case cited by the majority, does not support the majority’s conclusion. In that ease, this Justice agreed with the majority’s conclusion that Fetterly had committed felony murder because the murder “was part of a stream of events which began the evening Fetterly and Windsor entered Grammer’s home and ended the following day when Grammer’s possessions were removed from his home.” 109 Idaho at 771-72, 710 P.2d at 1207-08. There, the defendants entered a home intending to commit theft. They remained in the home until the owner returned and killed the owner before they removed his possessions from the home. The killing in that case was during the perpetration of a felony because it was committed at the same place where the burglary was committed and also before the burglary was completed. Those facts are obviously distinguishable from the instant case in that the shooting here took place hours after and miles away from the commission of the other felonies. In short, nothing in Fetterly even supports, much less compels, the majority’s conclusion.
In sum, there is insufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that James Pratt committed first degree murder. Because he did not commit a crime for which the death penalty is a potential punishment, this Justice concurs in the result in part XVI(C) (death penalty disproportionate). In light of the above, I express no opinion as to the issues discussed in parts VIII (holding that the Boyce evidence was made available to James Pratt prior to sentencing), X (consideration of mitigating circumstances), XI (sentencing alternatives), XII (constitutionality of death penalty statute), and XVI(A) and (B) (independent review of death sentence other than proportionality). It should also be noted that the majority need not address those issues as the reversal of the death sentence and the remand for resentencing renders them moot. In my view, the Court’s discussion in those sections is mere dicta.14
II. TRIAL ERRORS
Because of the errors noted below, the conviction should be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.
A. The Reasonable Doubt Instruction is Insufficient.
The giving of the reasonable doubt instruction in this case was reversible error for the same reasons expressed in State v. Rhoades, 121 Idaho 63, 83-4, 822 P.2d 960, 980-1 (1991) (Bistline, J., dissenting), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 962, 122 L.Ed.2d 119 (1993). Accordingly, I would reverse and remand for a new trial. Sullivan v. Louisiana, — U.S.-,-, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2082, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993) (holding that the giving of an erroneous reasonable doubt instruction can never be harmless error).
B. The Criminal Negligence Instruction Which was Given to the Jury Lowers the State’s Burden of Proof.
Instruction number 49 read:
*574You are instructed that in every crime or public offense there must exist a union, or joint operation, of act and intent, or criminal negligence.
Criminal negligence which will make an act a crime is gross negligence. Such negligence amounts to a wanton, flagrant or reckless disregard of consequences, or willful indifference of the safety or rights of others.
I concur with Justice Johnson in his analysis of this instruction. He believes that the instruction could have misled the jury into believing “it could use criminal negligence to substitute for specific intent.” 125 Idaho at 574, 873 P.2d at 828 (Johnson, J., concurring, concurring in the result, and dissenting). If the jury read the instruction in that way, the State’s burden of proof was lowered and the State was relieved of its duty to prove every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt as required by In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1073, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). Reversal is therefore required.

. Because this Court is statutorily required to review independently the "punishment as well as any errors enumerated by way of appeal,” I.C. § 19-2827(b), we can address this issue even though it was not raised on appeal. The trial court relied in large part in sentencing James Pratt to death — in other words, in determining punishment — upon its erroneous conclusion that Jacobson was a peace officer acting the line of duty.

. If the Court needed to reach those issues I would join Justice Johnson’s views as to parts X and XVI(A). 125 Idaho at 574, 873 P.2d at 828, (Johnson, J., concurring, concurring in the result, and dissenting).