Court Opinion

ID: 9538527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:37:25.279972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:56.981581
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring specially:
This is an appeal from a criminal sentence imposed after a plea of guilty. The majority affirms that sentence,’ and I concur with that affirmance.
*314Having made that decision, I think the majority has decided the only issue which is before the Court in this appeal. This is not a declaratory judgment action to determine whether the fixed term sentencing act, I.C. § 19-2513A, either prohibits the Board of Corrections from granting parole under any sentence imposed pursuant to that act, or whether the act violates the constitutional powers of the Board of Corrections found in Art. 4, § 7, of the Idaho Constitution, or the separation of. powers provisions of Art. 2, § 1, of the Idaho Constitution. Nor is this'a habeas corpus proceeding , in which the defendant is alleging that the Board of Corrections has denied him parole solely for the reason that he was sentenced pursuant to the fixed term sentencing act, I.C. § 19-2513A. Accordingly, all that the Court has said today regarding the constitutionality of I.C. § 19-2513A and the conclusion that that section prohibits the Board of Corrections from granting parole to any defendant sentenced to a fixed term sentence under that act is obiter dicta, and would best be left until that issue is properly before the Court.
The majority's conclusion that the Board of Corrections may not parole a defendant sentenced pursuant to the fixed term sentence act is not only an issue which is not before the Court, but their dicta may very well be wrong. When that issue is finally before the Court for decision, it will now be very difficult for this Court to objectively judge that issue in view of the gratuitous pronouncements which it has made on that subject in this case.
DONALDSON, J., concurs.