Court Opinion

ID: 9615340
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:35:19.252833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:46.988863
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE TRIEWEILER
specially concurring.
I concur with the result of the majority opinion. However, I do not agree with all that is said in that opinion.
Specifically, I disagree with the majority’s and the dissent’s conclusions that “a straightforward reading of § 46-17-311, MCA, and our cases, appears to support the District Court’s conclusion that an appeal de novo is not available here.”
A straightforward reading of § 46-17-311, MCA, compels the conclusion that an appeal de novo is permitted under the circumstances in this case.
Section 46-17-311(2), MCA, provides in relevant part that “[t]he defendant may appeal to the district court by filing written notice of intention to appeal within 10 days after a judgment is rendered following trial.” (Emphasis added.) Trial is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as:
A judicial examination, in accordance with law of the land, of a cause, either civil or criminal, of the issues between the parties, whether of law or fact, before a court that has jurisdiction over it. For purpose of determining such issue.
It includes all proceedings from time when issue is joined, or, more usually, when parties are called to try their case in court, to time of its final determination.
Black’s Law Dictionary 1657 (Rev. 4th ed. 1976) (citations omitted).
The defendant’s revocation hearing was a judicial proceeding at which evidence was presented, witnesses were called and cross-examined, and factual issues were resolved by the Justice Court. While it may not have been a “criminal adjudication” for the purpose of requiring the constitutional guarantees considered in our previous cases, see State v. Ryan (1975), 166 Mont. 419, 533 P.2d 1076; State v. Oppelt (1979), 184 Mont. 48, 601 P.2d 394; State v. Robinson (1980), *195190 Mont. 145, 619 P.2d 813, it was, nevertheless, a trial as that term is commonly understood in Anglo-American jurisprudence.
There is nothing really complicated or elusive about defining the term “trial.” Most first-year law students could recite that a trial is an adversary proceeding at which evidence is presented, and as a result of which, factual or legal issues are resolved. Defining the term only becomes complicated when someone insists, as the dissent does, on arriving at the word’s meaning by patching together the quilt work of result-oriented decisions in which this Court has created a subspecies of “trial” known as the “criminal trial” or “criminal adjudication” for the purpose of avoiding at a revocation hearing the constitutional protections that apply to the initial determination of a defendant’s guilt. However, those cases have no application here. We are not asked in this case to decide whether this revocation was a “criminal adjudication” for the purpose of applying due process, double jeopardy, or any other constitutional guarantee. We are simply asked in this case whether this adversary proceeding at which evidence was taken and factual issues were resolved was a “trial” within the meaning of our statute which authorizes appeals from decisions of the justice court. Sometimes by trying too hard, we overlook the obvious.
Similarly, when the District Court amended defendant’s previously imposed sentence, the District Court amended its judgment, and thereby entered a new judgment. A judgment is commonly understood to be “[t]he official and authentic decision of a court of justice upon the respective rights and claims of the parties to an action or suit therein litigated and submitted to its determination.” Black’s Law Dictionary 977 (Rev. 4th ed. 1976) (citations omitted).
While the statutory definition of “judgment” refers to an adjudication of guilt or innocence, that same statutory definition includes the sentence pronounced by the court. Section 46-1-201(10), MCA. Therefore, any amendment to that sentence is no less an amendment to the court’s judgment, and defendant’s right to appeal from the amendment is no less important than his right to appeal from the original judgment. To hold that there is a statutory right to appeal from judgments entered in justice court, but not from amendments to a judgment entered injustice court simply because the Legislature did not spell that fact out, exalts form over substance and would frustrate the purpose for which appeals from justice court judgments are allowed.
*196Therefore, I too would reverse the judgment of the District Court and allow defendant to proceed with his appeal from Justice Court to District Court. However, for the above reasons, I do not agree with all that is said in the majority opinion.