Court Opinion

ID: 9789922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:43:59.090095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:24.807315
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting:
It might readily be accepted that a man will somehow find and put together $10,-000.00 in order to avoid ascertaining how high up the scale the district court might climb in imposing sentence. As to how that amount of money was raised, while an interesting topic upon which to speculate, is of no concern — simply because an after-the-fact payment is not relevant to considerations which are a proper concern when a defendant appears at his sentencing hearing.1 Moreover, having seen in State v. *497Rocque, 104 Idaho 445, 660 P.2d 57 (1983), the mischief wrought by Part IV of the Wagenius opinion, which I disavowed in Rocque, I simply can no longer abide by the imposition of a jail sentence or any fine as a condition of probation — or, better put as applied to the circumstances of this case, an offer on the part of the trial court to accept a $50,000.00 “contribution” in return for a withheld judgment. I find the proposition totally abhorrent without regard to the size of the “donation.” Under our statutory law, a defendant convicted by his plea or by a jury can be fined, incarcerated or both— but, as Justice McFadden well stated it in his Wagenius opinion, “a court is without authority to impose jail sentences or fines incident to a probation order.... If punishment is the goal, then I.C. § 19-101 is appropriate and a jail sentence or fine may be imposed; but an accused should not be enticed with the prospect of a withheld judgment, and then immediately sentenced to and obligated to serve jail time or to pay a fine.” That the Court’s opinion makes no mention of Rocque, an ill-begotten progeny of Wagenius, is indeed disturbing, although perhaps not surprising. The trial bench has undoubtedly come to see that the Court will do what the Court will do, and that this is especially true where time-tested statutory provisions of criminal procedure stand in the way. Practicing trial attorneys with even a limited experience in the criminal field already know that often the first order of business for the criminally accused after being released on bond may be to take appropriate action to raise the cost of the bond premium — which may not always be done within the law — although that may be a rare case.
The precedent of today’s majority opinion is that this Court now approves withheld judgments for drug dealers so long as the price is right.
I respectfully dissent.

. Defense counsel properly and timely objected to augmentation of the record. The Court, in its usual receptiveness to prosecutorial and attorney general conduct, breaks precedent in allowing augmentation as to matters which were not before the lower court. Where this new policy will end, no one can say; nor what it will lead to.
The Court’s opinion conveniently lumps the defendants together, and hence avoids treading the most axiomatic of all sentencing guidelines, i.e., that of individualized sentencing. According to the record of proceedings made in the district court, the defendant Cross was not employed, had no source of income, and for eight years prior to 1981 had been receiving Social Security benefits. His 22 year old son testified *497to providing his father with $60.00 per week toward room and board, plus paying other bills.