Court Opinion

ID: 9582121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:22:48.955494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:28.324112
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting from denial of petition for rehearing.
Counsel for Lacey Sivak, in his Petition for Rehearing, presents several compelling reasons why this Court should grant the petition. Among the issues presented in his petition are the following:
(1) Whether the Idaho Supreme Court has denied Sivak the opportunity to raise important constitutional questions by con*923solidating Case No. 15022, which appealed the refusal of the trial judge to allow Sivak the opportunity to present additional evidence in mitigation of sentencing, with Case No. 14435, which appealed a decision denying Sivak the opportunity to submit additional briefing or arguments in Case No. 15022.
(2) Whether the trial court erred in refusing to hear evidence in mitigation of Sivak’s sentence on resentencing in contravention of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978) and Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982).
(3) Whether this Court’s procedure of vacating and remanding for resentencing, while purporting to retain jurisdiction, a procedure absolutely without precedent, and not provided for in rule or statute, was proper.
(4) Whether this Court’s proportionality review was incomplete and constitutionally defective as the majority opinion contains no specific reference to particular cases it examined. Of discussion, there is none.
(5) Whether I.C. § 19-2827 is constitutionally defective in that it apparently only requires the Court to compare death sentences with other death sentences rather than considering those cases in which an intentional killing was involved but which did not result in imposition of death.
(6) Whether I.C. § 9-2515(f)(8) which this Court narrowly construed in State v. Creech in order to preserve its constitutionality could have been properly applied in Sivak’s sentencing which occurred before this Court’s decision in Creech.
(7) Whether a death sentence can be premised on a condition found to exist with a certainty less than beyond a reasonable doubt as I.C. § 19-2515(f)(8) allows as an aggravating circumstance that “The defendant ... has exhibited a propensity to commit murder which will probably constitute a continuing threat to society.
(8) Whether the jury instruction on criminal liability for aiding and abetting was improper when it implied that Sivak could be found guilty thereunder for possession of a firearm which is not in and of itself a crime.
(9) Whether Sivak’s constitutional right to confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses was violated by the use of the unsworn and uncross-examined statement of Randall Bainbridge in a pre-sentence report for the district court’s finding that “[t]he defendant dominates his co-defendant, and is primarily responsible for all that occurred,” which served as a basis for the trial court’s imposition of the death penalty.
(10) Whether Sivak may be punished for both robbery and for murder premised on a felony murder theory when the robbery count did not require proof of an additional fact which the murder did.
Enough of these issues are presented with excellent briefing and argument so as to at least merit consideration and discussion by the Court, and better yet, reargument.