Court Opinion

ID: 9844313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:00:44.458399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:32.463517
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in the result.
While, in this one justice’s view, the Court should not be “hesitant to reverse ourselves when a doctrine, a defense, or a holding in a case, has been proven over time to be unjust or unwise,” Salinas v. Vierstras, 107 Idaho 984, 990, 695 P.2d 369, 375 (1985), the rule of State v. Jackson, 96 Idaho 584, 532 P.2d 926 (1975), is neither unjust nor unwise. Thus, while there are occasions for overruling precedent, see State v. Guzman, 122 Idaho 981, 987-998, 842 P.2d 660, 666-78 (1992) (wherein the logical and factual flaws in the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule as well as the precedential and policy reasons for rejecting that rule were demonstrated, at length), this is not one of them. Accordingly, I disagree with the majority’s decision to overrule State v. Jackson, although I concur in the result of *487the opinion because of the prospective only application of today’s holding.
Justice Johnson who dissented in part in Guzman performed an admirable service in synthesizing this Court’s decisions regarding the doctrine of stare decisis when he said that
[f]rom these “precedents” we can glean that prior decisions of this Court should govern unless they are manifestly wrong or have proven over time to be unjust or unwise. While I am prepared to accept these limitations on the rule of stare decisis, I am not prepared to allow these limitations to convert the precedents of this Court into ephemeral edicts that are here today and gone tomorrow, the duration of their lifespan depending on the composition and disposition of the Court. This is not to say that I am unwilling to overrule precedent that is manifestly wrong.
122 Idaho at 1001, 842 P.2d at 680. Similar sentiments were earlier expressed in a specially concurring opinion by the author of today’s State v. Dopp majority opinion. In a scholarly, well written, informative, and “in-depth review of the legal principal of stare decisis,” Justice McDevitt concluded that “[w]hile it may seem that stare decisis is a rule of convenience, it is not. I believe this rule requires us to stand by our prior decisions unless there are compelling and cogent reasons that necessitate a departure from our prior rulings.” State v. Card, 121 Idaho 425, 440-52, 825 P.2d 1081, 1096-1108 (1991), (McDevitt, J., specially concurring).2 It is not unreasonable to believe that Justice Trout and Justice Pro Tern. Woodland have an equally high regard for the doctrine of stare decisis as do Justices McDevitt and Johnson, but their views on the subject matter have not yet been advanced, and may later surface in the Idaho and Pacific Reporters.
Given the recent and fervent adulation at the altar of stare decisis, it might be expected that the majority opinion would' make an offering which would forcefully demonstrate how State v. Jackson was “manifestly wrong” and would additionally establish the “compelling and cogent reasons” which are needed in order to depart from our prior rulings. Instead, the majority’s explanation of why Jackson must be overruled is as “ephemeral” as that case itself now appears to be.
I.
Initially, it should be noted that this is not an example of a single aberrant case existing outside the mainstream of the law. In that case, the overruling of the rogue case would be more of a housekeeping matter and thus not subject to the “unjust or unwise” test. Here, to the contrary, a review of the Idaho cases cited by the majority shows those cases are consistent with and do not undermine the Jackson rule. In State v. Lavy, 121 Idaho 842, 828 P.2d 871 (1992), the defendant did not enter an Alford plea, and the motion to withdraw was made after he was sentenced. Thus, I.C.R. 33(c) required a showing of “manifest injustice.” In Jackson, a showing of manifest injustice was not required because the motion to withdraw the guilty plea was made prior to sentencing. State v. Martinez, 89 Idaho 129, 403 P.2d 597 (1965), involves the same factual situation as Lavy.
Although State v. Hawkin, 117 Idaho 285, 787 P.2d 271 (1990) and State v. Ballard, 114 Idaho 799, 761 P.2d 1151 (1988),' are pre-sentencing withdrawal cases, both are easily distinguishable from Jackson. First, neither Hawkins nor Ballard is an Alford plea case. Second, in both cases, the state would have been severely prejudiced if the motion to withdraw the plea had been granted. In Hawkins, the guilty plea was entered twelve days into trial, and this Court carefully distinguished that case from cases like Jackson, where no trial had commenced. In Ballard, the defendant absconded from the jurisdiction for three *488years after he entered his plea. There, the trial court found the state’s case had been prejudiced by the defendant’s voluntary absence. These cases do nothing to the vitality of Jackson because there was no showing of prejudice to the state in Jackson and the case simply does not address that situation.
In short, Jackson is firmly in the mainstream of the law. Thus some “compelling and cogent reason” must exist to overrule it.
II.
The majority, however, can muster only one infirm reason why Jackson should be overruled, to wit: “The utility of Alford pleas will be severely reduced if defendants are permitted to withdraw them before sentencing for no additional reason.” 124 Idaho at 486, 861 P.2d at 56. The careful reader might have stopped there and wondered how the utility of Alford pleas could be reduced by adhering to the rule now in effect. This Justice was brought to ponder on that possibility. Would the utility of Miranda warnings be severely reduced if the United States Supreme Court refused to overrule Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)? If so, would the utility of Miranda warnings be increased if that case were overruled? Unless the laws of physics have been turned on their head (“for every inaction there is an equal and opposite action” ), a reasonable guess is that the utility of Alford pleas would remain the same if Jackson is not overruled. Any other conclusion, i.e. the majority’s, is simply irrational.3
The majority, apparently oblivious to the concept of cause and effect, blithely trips along to make the following statement: “[s]uch a holding [i.e. not overruling Jackson ] might well lead to a reluctance on the part of prosecutors and judges to agree to the acceptance of such pleas.” Id., 124 Idaho at 486, 861 P.2d at 56. According to the majority, “[t]his would impair judicial efficiency by eliminating a useful procedure for the resolution of criminal cases; it would also work to the detriment of defendants.” Id. ')
As might be expected in this case, neither the State nor the majority has pointed to one iota of evidence, either empirical or anecdotal, about what the effect of Jackson has been on Alford pleas. However, I suspect that if the effect of Jackson is as pervasive and profound as the majority suggests, the Court would have heard about it sometime during the nearly twenty years which have lapsed since that case was announced. If the kind of baseless speculation engaged in by the majority is now all that is needed to overcome stare decisis, then an “open season” sign has been declared which can only tend to expose existing case law precedent to unwarranted attacks.
This justice would not overrule Jackson because there is no reason, much less a “compelling and cogent reason,” to do so.
III.
Additionally, because Jackson is soundly premised upon solid constitutional considerations, and because Jackson protects the accused’s right to a jury trial along with the other constitutional rights appurtenant thereto it should remain unmolested. The rights created by the United States Constitution exist to check the power of the state and thereby protect every citizen’s liberty. The minor inconvenience borne by trial courts and the state in cases like Jackson and Dopp’s case now before us, is so inconsequential that no sensible person would subvert those fundamental and cherished rights merely to avoid such a minor annoyance. Ironically, it is the majority who now creates a “harsh mandate” by holding that a claim of actual innocence is not a substantial enough reason to withdraw a guilty plea even if that motion is made prior to sentencing and there is no prejudice to the state. What must be kept firm*489ly in mind is that an assertion of innocence is the most substantial reason for a trial which a person can advance, notwithstanding the majority’s trivialization of that concept.
Instead of overruling cases “willy nilly,” the majority should temper today’s opinion and “course a less strident vein under the auspices” of stare decisis.4

. One justice was of the opinion that the unconstitutional and immoral execution of another human being was a sufficiently “compelling and cogent reason” to overrule an obviously erroneous decision less than a year old, but neither Justice Johnson nor Justice McDevitt agreed. State v. Card, 121 Idaho at 460, 825 P.2d at 1126.

. In my view, it is more likely that the utility of Alford, pleas will be “severely reduced" by the majority's opinion because now defendants have less incentive to enter those pleas. Thus the majority’s criticism of Jackson more logically applies to the majority’s opinion.

. 124 Idaho at 486, 861 P.2d at 56 (citing United States v. Barker, 514 F.2d 208 (D.C.Cir.1975).