Court Opinion

ID: 9614619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:26:55.867554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:13:18.630344
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
RIGHT TO JURY TRIAL
Once again the majority of three, Justices Donaldson, Bakes, and Shepard, decline another opportunity to attempt a realistic explanation of their reasons for declaring that the legislature has not impermissi-bly delegated the awesome responsibility of capital sentencing to district judges. In State v. Sivak, 105 Idaho 900, 903, 674 P.2d 396, 399 (1984), Justice Bakes made an attempt at refuting that which Justice Huntley and I had earlier written on the subject in State v. Creech, 105 Idaho 362, 375-419, 670 P.2d 463, 476-520 (1984). That attempt apparently satisfied Justices Donaldson and Shepard, who independently have not voiced any thoughts on this matter of extreme importance. That attempt failed to convince either Justice Huntley or myself, as is well witnessed by our separate Sivak opinions, Sivak, supra, 105 Idaho at 908-922, 674 P.2d at 404-418. In particular it was stated therein that:
Some may consider it a deplorable state of affairs that in a matter of such grave moment the majority does not even attempt to comment upon the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and the remarks of Mr. Heyburn, Mr. Claggett, and Mr. Ainslie in the drafting of Art. 1, section 7 — which was thereafter adopted by the people. Instead the majority digresses into the wholly irrelevant field of the judge’s discretion where the jury’s verdict was to convict of murder in the second degree.
With equal facility the majority facilely avoids discussing the teaching of State v. Miles, 43 Idaho 46, 248 P. 442 (1926), or attempting to explain away the words and wisdom of Justice Ailshie in In re Prout, 12 Idaho 494, 86 P. 275 (1906). Instead the majority opinion speaks of the sentencing discretion in, of all things, burglary cases. It gives us the remarkable pronouncement that the jury’s determination of whether the defendant is guilty of first or second degree murder, or perhaps the included offense of petit larceny, “will have a substantial impact upon the sentence ...,” and that such “does not mean that under our Constitution a defendant is entitled to have a jury impose the sentence.” No one has ever contended that it did in other than murder cases; the statement of the majority only serves to show no knowledge of the documentation of the Creech dissenting opinions, at the best, or, at the worst, a complete disregard for the irrefutable teaching of that documentation. In an ordinary case this would be thought regrettable. In a case where we review the imposition of a death sentence, it may well be regarded as unpardonable.
Most disturbing is the knowledge that prior to Furman the capital death sentencing procedures in Idaho were within a small percentage of being those which the Woodson Court would later prescribe. Basically all that was needed, prior to Furman, was a bifurcation so that a person accused of first degree murder would not be prejudiced by attempting at a single trial to prove both that he did not deserve the death penalty and that he was not guilty of first degree murder — a Catch 22 situation if ever there was one. For example, see State v. Clokey, 83 Idaho 322, 364 P.2d 159 (1961), and State v. Owen, 73 Idaho 394, 253 P.2d 203 (1953), both discussed in my Creech dissent. Those cases, and others, make it clear that this Court earlier, and absent legislative involvement, recognized that the trial courts should properly instruct the jury in a capital case to the end that the jury did not arbitrarily or capriciously invoke the penalty of death. Sivak, supra, 105 Idaho at 909-10, 674 P.2d at 405-06.
It is time, however, to put aside any thought that jury sentencing may be mandated by the federal constitution. Notwithstanding its own observation that in only the four states of Arizona, Idaho, *179Montana, and Nebraska is it the court which alone imposes sentence, and notwithstanding that the issue presented was the more limited one of a judge-override, the Supreme Court of the United States has finally taken the bull by the horns to put the matter to rest:
In light of the facts that the Sixth Amendment does not require jury sentencing, that the demands of fairness and reliability in capital cases do not require it, and that neither the nature of, nor the purpose behind, the death penalty requires jury sentencing, we cannot conclude that placing responsibility on the trial judge to impose the sentence in a capital case is unconstitutional. Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, —, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 3165, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984).
For my part, I am more persuaded by the views of Justice Stevens, with two justices concurring. Justice Stevens wrote in part:
“In the 12 years since Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), every Member of this Court has written or joined at least one opinion endorsing the proposition that because of its severity and irrevocability, the death penalty is qualitatively different from any other punishment, and hence must be accompanied by unique safeguards to ensure that it is a justified response to a given offense. Because it is the one punishment that cannot be prescribed by a rule of law as judges normally understand such rules, but rather is ultimately understood only as an expression of the community’s outrage — its sense that an individual has lost his moral entitlement to live — I am convinced that the danger of an excessive response can only be avoided if the decision to impose the death penalty is made by a jury rather than by a single governmental official. This conviction is consistent with the judgment of history and the current consensus of opinion that juries are better equipped than judges to make capital sentencing decisions. The basic explanation for that consensus lies in the fact that the question whether a sentence of death is excessive in the particular circumstances of any case is one that must be answered by the decision-maker that is best able to ‘express the conscience of the community on the ultimate question of life or death.’ Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 519, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 1775, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968) (footnote omitted).
“Here the level of consensus is even greater, thereby demonstrating a strong community feeling that it is only decent and fair to leave the life-or-death decision to the authentic voice of the community— the jury — rather than to a single governmental official. Examination of the historical and contemporary evidence thus unequivocally supports the conclusion reached by the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment three decades ago:
‘For our part, we have no hesitation in agreeing with the many witnesses who considered that, in this country at least, the responsibility of deciding whether a person convicted of murder should be sentenced to death or to a lesser punishment is too heavy a burden to impose on any single individual. The sentence of death differs absolutely, not in degree, from any other sentence; and it would be wholly inconsistent with our traditional approach to such issues to lay on the shoulders of the Judge a responsibility so grave and invidious. It is more in accord with the instinct of our people to entrust to the men and women of the jury a joint responsibility for decisions which will affect the life of the accused.’ Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, Report 193-194 (1953).9
VI
“The authors of our federal and state constitutional guarantees uniformly recognized the special function of the jury in any exercise of plenary power over the life and liberty of the citizen. In our jurisprudence, the jury has always played an essential role in legitimating the system of criminal justice.
*180‘The guarantees of jury trial in the Federal and State Constitutions reflect a profound judgment about the way in which law should be enforced and justice administered. A right to jury trial is granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent oppression by the Government. Those who wrote our constitutions knew from history and experience that it was necessary to protect against unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies and against judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority. The framers of the constitutions strove to create an independent judiciary but insisted upon further protection against arbitrary action. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge. If the defendant preferred the common-sense judgment of a jury to the more tutored but perhaps less sympathetic reaction of the single judge, he was to have it. Beyond this, the jury trial provisions of the Federal and State Constitutions reflect a fundamental decision about the exercise of official power — a reluctance to entrust plenary powers over the life and liberty of the citizen to one judge or to a group of judges. Fear of unchecked power, so typical of our State and Federal Governments in other respects, found expression in the criminal law in this insistence upon community participation in the determination of guilt or innocence.’ Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 155-156, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 1450-1451, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968) (footnote omitted).
“Thus, the jury serves to ensure that the criminal process is not subject to the unchecked assertion of arbitrary governmental power; community participation is ‘critical to public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system.’ Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 530, 95 S.Ct. 692, 698, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975).
“The same consideration that supports a constitutional entitlement to a trial by a jury rather than a judge at the guilt or innocence stage — the right to have an authentic representative of the community apply its lay perspective to the determination that must precede a deprivation of liberty — applies with special force to the determination that must precede a deprivation of life. In many respects capital sentencing resembles a trial on the question of guilt, involving as it does a prescribed burden of proof of given elements through the adversarial process. But more important than its procedural aspects, the life-or-death decision in capital cases depends upon its link to community values for its moral and constitutional legitimacy. In Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), after observing that ‘a jury that must choose between life imprisonment and capital punishment can do little more — and must do nothing less — than express the conscience of the community on the ultimate question of life or death,’ id., at 519, 88 S.Ct., at 1775 (footnote omitted), the Court added:
‘[0]ne of the most important functions any jury can perform in making such a selection is to maintain a link between contemporary community values and the penal system — a line without which the determination of punishment could hardly reflect “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” ’ Id., at 519, n. 15, 88 S.Ct., at 1775, n. 15 (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 598, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958) (plurality opinion)).
“That the jury is central to the link between capital punishment and the standards of decency contained in the Eighth Amendment is amply demonstrated by history. Under the common law capital punishment was mandatory for all felonies, and even through the last century it was mandatory for large categories of offenses. ‘[0]ne of the most significant developments in our society’s treatment of capital punishment has been the rejection of the common-law practice of inexorably imposing a death sentence upon every person convicted of a specified offense.’ Woodson, 428 U.S., at 301, 96 S.Ct., at 2989 (plurality opinion). *181The jury played a critical role in this process. Juries refused to convict in cases in which they felt the death penalty to be morally unjustified. This forced the adoption of more enlightened capital punishment statutes that were more in accord with the community’s moral sensibilities:
‘At least since the Revolution, American jurors have, with some regularity, disregarded their oaths and refused to convict defendants where a death sentence was the automatic consequence of a guilty verdict. As we have seen, the initial movement to reduce the number of capital offenses and to separate murder into degrees was prompted in part by the reaction of jurors as well as by reformers who objected to the imposition of death as the penalty for any crime. Nineteenth century journalists, statesmen, and jurists repeatedly observed that jurors were often deterred from convicting palpably guilty men of first-degree murder under mandatory statutes. Thereafter, continuing evidence of jury reluctance to convict persons of capital offenses in mandatory death penalty jurisdictions resulted in legislative authorization of discretionary jury sentenc-ing____’ Id., at 293, 96 S.Ct., at 2986 (footnote omitted).
“Thus the lesson history teaches is that the jury — and in particular jury sentencing — has played a critical role in ensuring that capital punishment is imposed in a manner consistent with evolving standards of decency. This is a lesson of constitutional magnitude, and one that was forgotten during the enactment of the Florida statute.
“That the jury provides a better link to community values than does a single judge is supported not only by our cases, but by common sense. Juries — comprised as they are of a fair cross-section of the community — are more representative institutions than is the judiciary; they reflect more accurately the composition and experiences of the community as a whole, and inevitably make decisions based on community values more reliably, than can that segment of the community that is selected for service on the bench. Indeed, as the preceding discussion demonstrates, the belief that juries more accurately reflect the conscience of the community than can a single judge is the central reason that the jury right has been recognized at the guilt stage in our jurisprudence. This same belief firmly supports the use of juries in capital sentencing, in order to address the Eighth Amendment’s concern that capital punishment be administered consistently with community values. In fact, the available empirical evidence indicates that judges and juries do make sentencing decisions in capital cases in significantly different ways, thus supporting the conclusion that entrusting the capital decision to a single judge creates an unacceptable risk that the decision will not be consistent with community values.
“Thus, the legitimacy of capital punishment in light of the Eighth Amendment’s mandate concerning the proportionality of punishment critically depends upon whether its imposition in a particular case is consistent with the community’s sense of values. Juries have historically been, and continue to be, a much better indicator as to whether the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for a given offense in light of community values than is a single judge. If the prosecutor cannot convince a jury that the defendant deserves to die, there is an unjustifiable risk that the imposition of that punishment will not reflect the community’s sense of the defendant’s ‘moral guilt.’ ” Spaziano, supra, 104 S.Ct. at 3167-78 (footnotes omitted).
First noting that many of the judges who must be convinced by prosecutors have been prosecutors, I call attention to part VI, wherein are found almost the same observations as to the founding fathers of the federal Constitution which I brought to attention in regard to the Idaho Constitution in Creech and again in Sivak. In Creech it was not my thinking or my philosophy which I urged upon the majority of *182three, but rather that which went into the creation of the Idaho Constitution long before anyone on this Court was born. Based upon recorded history, I wrote:
In reviewing their recorded considerations of that issue, we are fortunate today to have irrefutable evidence that those public leaders, of whom nearly one-half were practicing lawyers (Vol. I, Idaho Constitutional Convention, p. 160), were acutely aware that § 7 of Article I would guarantee forever that the legislature could not impinge upon the right of an accused to have a jury of his fellow men make the death penalty decision. Mr. Heyburn said it with an eloquence befitting a Thomas Jefferson or a James Madison:
“Mr. Chairman, I cannot agree with the gentleman in regard to the wisdom of changing entirely the system that is as old as government itself, that no man shall be deprived of his rights, of his liberty or his life, except by a unanimous verdict of a jury of his fellow citizens who have no interest other than to see that justice is done him. This principle has been deemed so important that at one time the demand that man should be protected by right of trial by jury revolutionized the civilized world____ It is the strong arm of the law that stands between the weak and the strong, between rich and poor, between oppressed and oppres-sor____ [I]t is still not necessary for us to say that less than a unanimous verdict shall deprive any man of either his liberty or his personal rights. We cannot afford in the interest of economy nor in the interest of speedy justice — or of speedy trial, more properly speaking — to lessen by one hair’s breadth the safeguard, the insurance every man has that his property or his rights will not be taken away from him, unless it is clear, beyond a reasonable doubt that they do not belong to him, and that that reasonable doubt is to be determined by a unanimous verdict.”
Id. at 152-53 (emphasis added).
Although Mr. Claggett, the sponsor of the proposed % majority rule proposal contended that the requirement of unanimous verdicts in criminal cases paralyzed the law enforcement power of the state, even he recognized that capital cases are unique:
“MR. CLAGGETT.... We all know the defendant has every benefit from reasonable doubt. We all know he has a double advantage in impaneling the jury. We all know that when there has once been a verdict of acquittal he cannot be called in question again, no matter how wrong the verdict may be. And we all know in addition that the court has power to suspend judgment on the verdict after conviction, in order that application may be made to the governor for pardon in any case which may arise now and then, where the . conviction is wrong, or where, if not wrong, the punishment is too severe, so that there is ample opportunity given before the execution of the judgment of the court for a review of the case by the governor or board of pardons. Now I ask whether all these things taken together, one and all, do not constitute too much advantage on the part of the defendant, and whether the strong arm of the state, which is stretched out and whose function is to protect the people, is not paralyzed by this system of a unanimous verdict.
“Mr. BATTEN. I will ask you, why make an exception in capital cases?
“Mr. CLAGGETT. Out of mere tenderness to human life, and because if the death penalty is once inflicted you can never rectify the error, but on the question of imprisonment you have the entire term of his imprisonment to correct it.”
Id. at 251 (emphasis added).
Clearly the right, indeed the safeguard, to have a jury of fellow citizens make the decision of death was foremost in the minds of the framers when they assembled in the year 1899 and drafted *183the Constitution of Idaho which was accepted by the people and the Union. Creech, supra, 105 Idaho at 393-94, 670 P.2d at 494-95 (italics in original, underscoring added).
In Sivak, I lamented (as set forth earlier herein, but important enough to be worthy of repetition):
Some may consider it a deplorable state of affairs that in a matter of such grave moment the majority does not even attempt to comment upon the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and the remarks of Mr. Heyburn, Mr. Claggett, and Mr. Ainslie in the drafting of Art. 1, section 7 — which was thereafter adopted by the people. Sivak, supra, 105 Idaho at 909, 674 P.2d at 405.
USE OF HEARSAY BY SENTENCER
And, as Justice Huntley and I have consistently sought to show to our brethren, hand-in-glove with the present majority-approved one-judge sentencing scheme is the widespread and grossly improper use of hearsay, even to the extent of newspaper editorials which, as self-appointed purported voices of the people, suggest to the sentencer which course he should take.
Justice Bakes has defended this practice on the basis that at the two trials, first that of guilt or innocence, and second, that of life or death, it is only that the sentencer is provided with broader ranges of information than the jury.
I continue to believe, as I have heretofore espoused in Sivak and Creech that any evidence which would be inadmissible before a jury as sentencer is equally inadmissible where the judge performs that function. In this particular case, the pre-sentence investigation report, a conglomeration of hearsay upon hearsay from all kinds of sources, together with the preliminary transcript, has had its effect upon the majority. See Part VI, Majority Opinion. It also had a like effect upon the sentencing judge who, to his credit, wrote less emotionally than do today’s majority. Judge Schwam wrote:
19-2515(f)(8) THE DEFENDANT BY PRIOR CONDUCT OR CONDUCT IN THE COMMISSION OF THE MURDER AT HAND HAS EXHIBITED A PROPENSITY TO COMMIT MURDER WHICH WILL PROBABLY CONSTITUTE A CONTINUING THREAT TO SOCIETY. The Court finds this to be true beyond a reasonable doubt in this case. The facts adduced at the trial and at the preliminary hearing are that the defendant has brutalized, at times with the use of weapons, almost every person with whom he has become emotionally involved. The evidence demonstrates that it was only a matter of time until one of the defendant’s victims died as a result of the defendant’s brutal behavior. The Court is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that if this defendant continues to exist, it will again be only a matter of time until another victim is murdered. The evidence demostrates beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant attempted to drown a woman as a means of torture and that this defendant inflicted brutal beatings upon his second wife and raped her while she was in the hospital recovering from an automobile accident. The defendant’s brutal behavior toward so many different people over a period in excess of a decade demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt a propensity to commit murder in the future.
The Court has chosen to impose the death penalty because the continued existence of this defendant poses a constant threat to all around him; and because only the most serious punishment is appropriate for such an atrocious, depraved and heinous crime as the one committed by this defendant. As the Court has indicated, it could find nothing in mitigation which would outweigh the aggravated circumstances of this crime and this defendant. (Emphasis added.)
Defendant was not here charged or tried for attempting to drown a woman. The defendant was not here charged with beating and raping his second wife in the hospital. As far as my review shows, the de*184fendant was never so charged. The trial judge, however, found him guilty of those unrelated crimes, and considered that guilt in passing sentence.
MURDER BY TORTURE
A perusal of the majority opinion should convince anyone that the defendant is a bad person. A brutal killing of a three-year-old boy is abhorrent to the senses. With the evidence admitted and the instructions given, concededly it would be a strange jury which would not have convicted him, and had the sentence been by jury instead of the judge, the imposition of the death penalty would not have been startling. But, to say that is not to say that the defendant has had fair trials in both instances. Those are the questions which we have had presented to us. And, on our review mandated by the legislature, we are required to search the record for error, whether or not assigned by the defendant on his appeal. Our obligation is to ascertain that no prejudicial error has occurred. There is no further review after a defendant is executed. State v. Osborn, 104 Idaho 809, 663 P.2d 1111 (1983).
There is no doubt that the defendant was guilty of killing the boy. Attached to the presentence report, and apparently in the defendant’s own handwriting, is an undated ten-page questionnaire signed by the defendant. In it he admits that he caused the death of the boy by striking him. The presentence investigator, after interviewing the defendant, wrote: “According to Mr. Stuart on the day of the instant offense he became upset over the victim’s ‘whining,’ struck the boy in the stomach with his fist, wheeled him around, ‘swat him on the butt’ and made him finish his lunch.” The boy lay dead a short time later. At trial defendant’s attorney acknowledged defendant’s guilt, arguing only that it was not murder, but manslaughter.
The pathologist, Dr. Reay, a year prior to the trial, reported his findings to the sheriff’s office:
I am of the opinion that this boy came to his death as a result of multiple liver lacerations with the attendant hemorrhage resulting from those lacerations. The nature of the lacerations is such that a forceful blunt impact to the abdomen, multiple in character, are responsible for these lacerations. The type of force which is required to tear the liver includes a well placed blow with a fist, the pressure applied by a knee, or the violent movement of the body against an object striking the front of the abdomen. The type of lacerations described and demonstrated in the photographs are of the sort that are seen in traffic accidents which result from high velocity forces. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation has occasionally produced a superficial capsular tear but never to the extent, number or severity as demonstrated in the photographs and described in the autopsy protocol. The injuries as described and in the context of the report of investigation would indicate that the person(s) responsible for the care of the child on the afternoon of his death is likewise responsible for the injuries that were demonstrated at the time of autopsy.
... On the basis of the autopsy findings, the reason for his vomiting is a paralytic ileus as a result of injuries to the abdomen. I would further conclude that these injuries to the abdomen occurred a short period of time before the episode of vomiting. The microscopic changes in the liver showed acute inflammation which can be seen as early as one hour following injury and is certainly well developed at three to four hours following injury. Whatever the mechanism of injury, it appears to have happened shortly after his return from the neighbor’s house and before the first episode of vomiting.
I think I have covered all the questions surrounding this death that are pertinent to the central issue. There may be peripheral questions which you desire to have answered and I will do my best to provide an answer. In summary, I would conclude that this child died as a result of blunt impact injuries to the abdomen with lethal tears to the liver *185and accompanied by massive internal bleeding. The inconsistency of the statements and the injuries along with the time sequence, indicates that whoever was responsible for this child’s care is likewise responsible for these injuries and I would certainly view the death as a homicide.
A court can certainly take judicial notice that well-muscled boxers have been killed by a severe blow in the area of the abdomen, even when struck by a gloved fist. Here, there was no glove, and the blow or blows delivered were killing blows delivered into the small body of a three-year-old. No evidence pointed to the guilt of anyone but the defendant. The defendant intended to strike the boy, he did strike, and he is criminally responsible for the result, whether he intended it or not. If there is any excuse for so killing a small child, I am unaware of it. I am certain twelve jurors were unaware of any excuse. Apology and even remorse do not suffice. The defendant’s written expression of willingness to make restitution does not suffice. There can be no restitution.
The sentencing judge was the same judge who presided over the trial. He not only had the benefit of those factors which I have above-mentioned, but he also heard the same live testimony which the jury heard and relied upon. In December of 1982, he submitted to this Court his § 19-2827 Report on Imposition of the Death Penalty. To it he attached a copy of his § 19-2515 Findings which were made after the sentencing hearing which had been earlier conducted in that same month. Therein the judge made a statement which has led to my having considerable problems with the majority disposition. That statement is:
The evidence showed a systematic months long torture of a two to three year old child, culminating in a brutal and savage application of force that produced the death of the child. (Emphasis added.)
That portion underscored is amply sustained by Dr. Reay’s report alone, and all of the evidence points to the inescapable fact that the defendant’s use of deadly force killed the boy on the 19th day of September, 1982. Clearly, the prosecuting attorney had before him a prima facie case of first degree murder — murder which may have resulted from willful, deliberate and premeditated actions of the defendant. See State v. Aragon, 107 Idaho 358, 690 P.2d 293 (1984). The prosecutor, however, did not so charge the defendant. Instead, electing to charge murder by torture, and notwithstanding that he could have charged in a two-count information, the whole case proceeded upon only the murder-by-torture charge — from the time of filing the original criminal complaint which led to the preliminary hearing and the binding of defendant over to district court for trial. The charging part of the Amended Information upon which the defendant stood trial for first degree murder read as follows:
That Gene Francis Stuart of Orofino, Idaho, on or about the 19th day of September 1981, at Orofino, in the County of Clearwater, State of Idaho, then and-there being, did then and there unlawfully and feloniously kill a human being, with the intentional application of torture to said human being, to wit: that the said Gene Francis Stuart did strike and hit Robert Miller, a human being, repeatedly with the intent to cause suffering or to satisfy some sadistic inclination of the said Gene Francis Stuart, thereby inflicting great bodily injury upon Robert Miller and mortally wounding Robert Miller, from which wounds the said Robert Miller, a three year old boy, sickened and died in the County of Clearwater, State of Idaho, on the 19th day of September 1981.
A reading, and rereading, and re-rereading of that information that the crime allegedly committed by the defendant on the 19th day of September was that defendant inflicted great bodily injury upon the boy which mortally wounded him so that he died the same day, and, that the blows stricken, repeatedly, were delivered (1) with the intent to cause suffering, or, (2) with *186the intent to satisfy “some” sadistic inclination of defendant’s.
Murder perpetrated by torture has been part of our criminal law since 1864. So has murder perpetrated by poison. For over a hundred years there was no problem. Everyone knew what murder by poison was, and everyone knew what murder by torture was. Torture was, and is, and has always been, the intentional infliction of extreme pain. The intent was not necessarily to kill, and may have been, and often was not to kill. Not too many years ago it was even utilized to persuade people to confess — sometimes to crimes they had not committed. It was used during the Spanish Inquisition to persuade people to recant. Criminals have used it to compel people to open safes or disclose the location of valuables. Torture is a word which has needed no definition.
Murder by torture similarly has not, over the years, been in need of any definition. Although some torturers do not intend the death of their victims, it is a known fact that extreme pain is a cause of death — and where the pain causes the death, there is, and has always been, a case for murder by torture. In some torture murders the murderer is not content to kill his victim outright, but deliberately prolongs the life of his victim so as to insure that the victim does suffer and continues to suffer. A good example of legal torture murder was the execution of some classes of criminals in Merry Old England — where executions were by prolonged near-hangings, disem-bowelings, and quarterings. One need not go on.
When the legislature in 1977 provided a definition for the word “torture,” it came up with the same language that the various courts over the country have been using for years: “Torture is the intentional infliction of extreme and prolonged pain with the intent to cause suffering.” I.C. § 18-4001. It is a good definition, insofar as I have copied it above.
But, unfortunately, it goes beyond that which case law provided, and adds:
It shall also be torture to inflict upon a human being extreme and prolonged acts of brutality irrespective of proof of intent to cause suffering. (Emphasis added.)
This is language of doubtful validity, but with which initially I had no concern. The information did not charge the defendant with “extreme and prolonged acts of brutality.” When, on a second last review just before our opinions were about to be released, on reading the instructions, I found instruction No. 17 to be in the language of the charging part of the information:
INSTRUCTION NO. 17
The State must prove all the material elements of the offense charged by the Information to be true beyond a reasonable doubt before the defendant can be found guilty of First Degree Murder. It is not necessary that every fact and circumstance put in evidence on behalf of the State be established beyond a reasonable doubt, but only that all facts and circumstances in evidence, when taken together, establish beyond a reasonable doubt all of the material elements of the offense charged. The material elements of the offense charged against the defendant are:
1. That Gene Francis Stuart killed Robert Miller, a human being.
2. That the killing was caused by the intentional application of torture.
3. That the torture was inflicted with the intent to cause suffering or to satisfy some sadistic inclination of Gene Francis Stuart.
4. That the killing occurred on or about the 19th day of September, 1981.
5. That the killing occurred in Clear-water County, State of Idaho.
Unless you find that the State has proven all the material elements of this offense beyond a reasonable doubt you may not find the defendant guilty of First Degree Murder. (Emphasis added.)
I also found that the trial court had in the very next instruction, No. 18, deviated from No. 17, and here dropped any mention *187of the satisfying of a sadistic inclination, but included extreme and prolonged acts of brutality:
INSTRUCTION NO. 18
Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought or the intentional application of torture to a human being, which results in the death of a human being. Torture is the intentional infliction of extreme and prolonged pain with the intent to cause suffering. It shall also be torture to inflict on a human being extreme and prolonged acts of brutality irrespective of proof of intent to cause suffering. The death of a human being caused by such torture is murder irrespective pf proof of specific intent to kill; torture causing death shall be deemed the equivalent of intent to kill. (Emphasis added.)
Defendant had not been so charged with extreme and prolonged acts of brutality, and this was fundamental error of the highest level. It allowed the jury to disregard that portion of Instruction 17 which required proof of intent.
The trial court also went beyond the charge of the information to instruct the jury as though there were an independent charge of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing:
INSTRUCTION NO. 20
All murder which is perpetrated by means of poison, or lying in wait, or torture, when torture is inflicted with the intent to cause suffering, to execute vengeance, to extort something from the victim, or to satisfy some sadistic inclination, or which is perpetrated by any kind of wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing is murder of the first degree.
All other kinds of murder are of the second degree. (Emphasis added.)
Recognizing that torture is inherently malicious, the legislature has never required any proof of malice in torture murders. But malice aforethought is an element of wilful and premeditated murder. Here the trial judge instructed:
INSTRUCTION NO. 19
Malice may be express or implied. It is express when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature. It is implied when no considerable provocation appears, or when the circumstances attending the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.
The defendant, as I have suggested earlier, was only charged with first degree torture murder, although he could have been also charged with first degree willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder. (See People v. Lynn, 159 Cal.App.3d 715, 206 Cal.Rptr. 181 (4 Dist.1984), where the defendant went to trial on three counts of first degree murder, that it was a premeditated and deliberate killing, that it was a torture murder, and that it was a felony murder.)
Not only did the trial judge not restrict himself to instructing within the confines of the charge of the information, but in his § 19-2515 findings, he did not, nor did the trial over which he presided, confine itself to the date alleged. Any extreme and prolonged acts of brutality were not proven to have taken place on the 19th. It was on that day that the defendant made “a brutal and savage application of force [not torture] that produced the death.” The torture which was the court’s concern was a prior “months long torture.” The court went on to describe it:
The evidence shows that this lengthy application of torture and force was done to this small child in an alleged effort to cause this child to conform to the defendant’s capricious and inconsistent ever changing whims; a task which was obviously impossible and was undertaken merely to provide an excuse to obtain sadistic pleasure by hurting the child over and over and over.
It is appropriate at this point to list some of the tortuous demands made upon this tiny child, which invariably provided an excuse to inflict pain upon the *188child. The defendant demanded that the child eat pursuing a prescribed pattern of handling the silverware, the glasses and the napkin, which was so complex that most adults would have difficulty achieving satisfactory results and then upon the child’s failure, would punish the child. These punishments would include withholding of food, cold showers and beatings. Defendant demanded that this tiny child not ever whine, cry or pout. If the child failed even in a small way the result would be beatings or cold showers.
The sentencing judge, in imposing the death penalty, also relied upon the “overwhelming evidence that defendant used this same tortuous method to deal with numerous adult women.” The majority finds no error whatever in the trial admission of such evidence. To bolster an extremely weak position, the majority falls back upon and resorts to the trial court’s reasoning — which is fairly well set out in the opinion for the Court, for which reason I will not repeat it. Strangely, I must suppose, when I read those comments I see nothing but an outright, commendably candid concession of the tremendous and unmeetable prejudicial impact. The evidence, in my view, was not here relevant. It was not highly relevant, and it only served to excite the jury into a belief that defendant tortured the boy to death over a long period of time, when in fact he was not so charged.
FAILURE TO INSTRUCT
The majority in its part I.B. is guilty of a gross misapplication of State of Lopez, as is readily exposed. The majority states that appellant’s counsel invited error in two ways, by merely accepting the court’s instructions and by failing to request other instructions. This not only flies in the face of this Court’s criminal rules of procedure, but is wholly contrary to existing case law. The applicable rule reads:
At the close of the evidence or at such earlier time as the court reasonably directs, any party may file written requests that the court instructed the jury on the law as set forth in the request. At the same time, copies of such requested instructions shall be furnished to adverse parties. The court shall inform counsel of its proposed actions upon the requested instructions and shall allow counsel a reasonable time within which to examine and make objections outside the presence of the jury to such instructions or the failure to give requested instructions. The court shall read the instructions to the jury prior to final argument; but if all parties consent, it may read part or all of the instructions after final argument. [Adopted December 27, 1979, effective July 1, 1980.]
Prior to the change made in 1979, it provided otherwise:
The court shall inform counsel of its proposed actions upon the requested instructions and shall allow counsel a reasonable time within which to examine and make objections outside the presence of the jury to such instructions or the failure to give requested instructions. Such objections shall state distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objections, which objections shall be made a part of the record. No party may assign as error any portion of the [charge] or omission therefrom unless he objects thereto prior to the time that the jury is [charged] (Emphasis added.)
Failing to object or not requesting an instruction has never been held to be invited error. The majority language which seemingly perceives a distinction between “failing to object” and “accepting” is pure semantic sophistry. While ordinarily it might be thought of as an amusing diversion, it plays no part in a capital case where our review has a 99% chance of being the last and only meaningful review for error. I do not encounter any problem with the proposition of invited error, and am apparently more conversant with State v. Lopez than is Justice Bakes, who today relies upon it for a principle not here applicable.
The facts of Lopez may be taken directly from our opinion:
*189Lopez next argues that the trial court erred in not instructing the jury as to the lesser included offense of assault with a deadly weapon, battery or assault. The record indicates that the only instruction on a lesser included offense that was initially requested by defense counsel was on assault with a deadly weapon (I.C. § 18-906). However at the close of the trial,, defense counsel stated that the defendant wished to withdraw his request for an instruction on the lesser included offense of assault with a deadly weapon. The trial judge complied with the defendant's request stating that whether the jury is instructed as to lesser included offenses is “not the prerogative of the judge or the State but that it is a matter of the Defendant’s decision.”
Prior to 1977, the law was clear in Idaho that the burden was upon the defendant to request the court to instruct on lesser included offenses. State v. Morris, 97 Idaho 420, 546 P.2d 375 (1976); State v. Herr, 97 Idaho 783, 554 P.2d 961 (1976); State v. Boyenger, 95 Idaho 396, 509 P.2d 1317 (1973). This Court recognized that in a situation where the state has requested that the defendant be convicted of a lesser included offense, the defendant, as a trial tactic, may not desire any instruction regarding a lesser included offense. See State v. Herr, supra; State v. Boyenger, supra. The case law was clear that no error could be predicated upon the failure of the trial court to give an instruction on a lesser included offense where defendant did not request such or as in the instant case withdraws such request.
However, in 1977 the Idaho legislature enacted I.C. § 19-2132(b) which states: “The court shall instruct the jury on lesser included offenses when they are supported by any reasonable view of the evidence.” This Court on several occasions has construed the word “shall” as being mandatory and not discretionary. Hollingsworth v. Koelsch, 76 Idaho 203, 280 P.2d 415 (1955); Munroe v. Sullivan Mining Co., 69 Idaho 348, 207 P.2d 547 (1949); State v. Braun, 62 Idaho 258, 110 P.2d 835 (1941). It is clear that I.C. § 19-2132(b) makes it the duty of the trial court to instruct the jury on lesser included offenses when they are supported by a reasonable view of the evidence, even if the court is not requested to do so. To the extent that prior Idaho cases held that no error could be predicated upon the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury on lesser included offenses unless defendant requested such instructions, they are no longer applicable.
The record indicates that defense counsel opposed an instruction to the jury on assault with a deadly weapon in what appeared to be a tactical consideration to confront the jury with only two alternatives, acquittal or conviction of assault with intent to murder. The failure of the trial court to instruct on assault with a deadly weapon was caused by defendant’s objection and therefore was invited error and will not be considered on appeal. People v. Ray, 14 Cal.3d 20, 120 Cal.Rptr. 377, 533 P.2d 1017 (1975); People v. Sedeno, 10 Cal.3d 703, 112 Cal.Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913 (1974); People v. Phillips, 64 Cal.2d 574, 51 Cal.Rptr. 225, 414 P.2d 353 (1966); cf. King v. State, 93 Idaho 87, 456 P.2d 254 (1969) (refusal of assistance of counsel).
In future cases the trial bench should be cognizant that under the mandatory terms of I.C. § 19-2132(b) the duty to instruct as to lesser included offenses exists even when as a matter of trial tactics a defendant fails to request the instruction. However, any failure by the trial court to meet this mandatory duty which is caused by defendant’s express objection to or waiver of the trial court instructing as to lesser included offenses will be as in the instant case invited error and not considered on appeal. People v. Ray, supra; People v. Sedeno, supra; People v. Mosher, 1 Cal.3d 379, 82 Cal.Rptr. 379, 461 P.2d 659 (Cal.1969); State v. Weyer, 210 Kan. 721, 504 P.2d 178 (1972). 100 Idaho at 101-02, 593 P.2d 1003.
*190What the Court held there is beyond any genuine dispute. We all recognized that the defendant had opted “to go for broke,” as it were, and to take the chance of getting convicted as charged, or acquitted. The defendant there affirmatively caused, and hence invited the failure to instruct as required by the statute.
Today, only six short years since Lopez, a majority of the Court willingly misuse that case in order to turn aside an absolutely valid assignment of error. Not only is the defendant thusly denied a fair trial, but the law has once again made a shambles where a majority now rules that failure to object is invited error. It is in order to' again borrow language which best expresses my view of the Court’s irresponsibility:
The most intolerable evil, however, under which we have lived for the past twenty-five years, has been the changing and shifting character of our judicial decisions, by which we have been deprived of the inestimable benefit of judicial precedents as a safeguard to our rights of person and property.
Inasmuch as today’s majority places reliance on Arizona case law, as well as on case law from California, it is noteworthy that the Supreme Court of Arizona, apparently even in the absence of a statute such as I.C. § 19-2132(b), held in a torture murder case that “The trial court had a duty to correctly instruct the jury on the elements of murder by torture applicable to the case being tried and its failure to do so, though not assigned as error by the defendant, constitutes reversible error.” State v. Brock, 101 Ariz. 168, 416 P.2d 601 (1966); see also on this Court’s doctrine of fundamental error where error was not preserved, Phillips v. State, 108 Idaho 405, 700 P.2d 27 (1985) (Bistline, J., dissenting.)
SEQUESTERING THE JURY
The refusal of the district judge to sequester the jury leaves no doubt in my mind that the defendant was denied a fair trial. On September 30, 1982 defendant’s attorney moved that the jury in the forthcoming trial be sequestered. The district court summarily denied the motion at that time, but told defense counsel that after the jury was chosen he could renew the motion. This was a hollow promise. That opportunity never came. The court cut it off in a manner which precluded the defense from even making the motion. This arbitrary action took place in this manner, the court addressing the entire jury panel:
In fact, this is probably as good a time as any to explain that this a type of case in which the Defense can request that the jury be sequestered. That means that all during the trial whoever is chosen to be on the jury would have to be under the control of the bailiff at all times. That means you’d be placed in a motel and whatever you saw or heard would be censored. You’d be away from your families, you wouldn’t have evenings to deal with any business matters you might have. It is, in other words, an enormous inconvenience. That’s not going to happen in this case. The jury is not going to be sequestered. I am no longer required by law to do that. And so I generally don’t do it. Each time I have not sequestered a jury it has worked out just fine because I find that jurors are very dedicated people and do what they’re supposed to and it probably was a waste of time to be sequestering all these jurors these years. In this particular case, because I do expect it will get some publicity, I’m going to make some special requests of anyone who serves on this jury who’s a prospective juror now.
It is much simpler to not be sequestered and give up reading newspapers and listening to television news broadcasts than it is to be sequestered and have access to censored newspapers and news broadcasts. Because I am so certain that this case will get publicity and because I am concerned that the publicity may contain assertions about the case over which none of us have control and which may be completely erroneous or untrue, I feel the best thing to do is to require of the jurors — prospective jurors and those who ultimately may be chosen, *191that while this case proceeds — it will take about a week and a half to two weeks to finish it, while this case proceeds that you just not read any news papers from this area. By this area I mean published or distributed in Lewiston, Moscow, Spokane. If you receive the Wall Street Journal, for example, I don’t suspect this matter will show up in that kind of a paper. But any local newspapers that might be covering this matter I’m going to rely on your intelligence, don’t read them during this period because I’m so certain there will be publicity. The same I think you’ll find will be true about television news broadcast that again emi-nate either from Spokane or Lewiston. I think that you can expect that there will be some publicity, don’t know how extensive it will be. I would appreciate it and I will require that during the time of this trial while you are still involved in it, because many of you may be excused today, for example, if you are not chosen but while you are involved in this trial, I would again require that you not listen to any television broadcasts. That way I can avoid sequestering and yet running virtually no risk of having to do this trial over again and I would ask your cooperation in this matter. R., Vol. 1, pp. 7-9.
Clearly, after these remarks to the jury it not only would have been futile for defendant’s attorney to renew his motion to sequester the jury, but he would have alienated every one of those jurors. Properly the court, in an exercise of due process, would have heard from counsel before ruling, and in ruling would have stated his reasons. The fashion in which the court acted precludes any meaningful review.
Moreover, the district judge could not have been deluded regarding the widespread nature of publicity and information about this case. Venue had already been changed from Clearwater County to Latah County — the two counties being adjacent, and their county seats being but about 60 miles apart. The prospective jurors’ answer to their knowledge of the case was an excellent measure of the amount of information already disseminated in Latah County:
Have any of you heard of this case before?
(All jurors in the jury box except juror No. 8 and 9 and many hands in the audience were raised.) R., Vol. 1, p. 13.
Any doubts about the lack of need to sequester the jury should have been eliminated after this scenario. For the district judge to assume that none of the jurors would read newspapers, or would ignore questions by family or friends, or hear news accounts on the television or the radio is an absurd refusal to acknowledge what is known to be just plain human nature. The tragic result which must be presumed is the denial of a fair trial to a defendant charged with the most serious crime under the laws of Idaho.
The trial court was simply unrealistic. Better the court should have requested the local newspapers and radio and television stations to refrain from printing and broadcasting. That route would have been as equally ineffective as against sequestering the jury.
Nonetheless, the majority today blithely states that “There is no indication that any juror was exposed to prejudicial publicity during the course of the trial.” Although this glib statement at first glance appears to be sound, a careful analysis of the majority’s ruling demonstrates exactly how empty this proposition really is. What the majority intentionally obfuscates by this statement is the difficulty, if not impossibility of proving prejudice to the jury which would require a new trial. I.R.C.P. 59(a)(2) addresses the issue of jury misconduct:
2. Misconduct of the jury; and when any one or more of the jurors have been induced to assent to any general or special verdict, or to a finding on any question submitted to them by the court, by a resort to the determination of chance, such misconduct may be proved by the affidavit of any one of the jurors.
This rule provides only one ground for jury misconduct — if a jury determination was *192made by chance. Hence, any other form of prejudicial influence cannot be used as a ground for challenging the verdict and the aggrieved party is completely foreclosed from inquiring into the existence of prejudice. See, G. Bell, Handbook of Evidence for the Idaho Lawyer 7-9 (1972). There is no method for an aggrieved party to determine if any juror was exposed to prejudicial publicity during the course of the trial, so clearly there can be no indication of such in the record. The majority’s circuitous reasoning that there was no abuse of discretion by the trial court in failing to sequester the jury will leave even the most sophisticated legal mind completely bedazzled.
• The majority contentedly declares that such matters are in the discretion of trial judges. I am persuaded, however, to the better views of a unanimous Court of Appeals in Sheets v. Agro-West, Inc., 104 Idaho 880, 887, 664 P.2d 787 (1983), wherein it was said:
“Discretion” has been defined as a power or privilege to act unhampered by legal rule. Black’s Law Dictionary at 553 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). However, “judicial discretion” is a more restrained concept. Lord Coke is said to have defined judicial discretion as an inquiry into “what would be just according to the laws in the premises.” Id. Judicial discretion “requires an actual exercise of judgment and a consideration of the facts and circumstances which are necessary to make a sound, fair, and just determination, and a knowledge of the facts upon which the discretion may properly operate.” 27 C.J.S. Discretion at 289 (1959). Discretion which violates these restraints is discretion abused.
Therefore, to determine whether discretion has been abused, an appellate court must ascertain whether the trial judge has correctly perceived the “law in the premises” and has demonstrated due “consideration of the facts and circumstances.” In Lisher v. Krasselt, 96 Idaho 854, 857, 538 P.2d 783, 786 (1975), our Supreme Court said:
“We decline to ascribe a definitive meaning to the amorphous phrase ‘abuse of discretion’ solely for the purposes of this case, but it will suffice to say, that where the trial court has exercised such discretion after a careful consideration of the relevant factual circumstances and principles of law, and without arbitrary disregard for those facts and principles of justice, we will not disturb that action.”
The clear import of Lisher is that an appellate court should not substitute its discretion for that of a trial court. This may seem a statement of the obvious, but it carries a profound implication. Appellate review of judicial discretion should not be result-oriented. An appellate court should not focus primarily upon the outcome of a discretionary decision below, but upon the process by which the trial judge reached his decision. In order for the appellate court to perform this function properly, it must be informed of the reasons for the trial court’s decision. Unless those reasons are obvious from the record itself, they must be stated by the trial judge. Where the reasons are neither obvious nor stated, the appellate court is left to speculate about the trial court’s perception of the law and knowledge of the facts. As a practical matter, the appellate court finds itself locked into a result-oriented review.
... The trial judge is in a better position than are we to evaluate the peculiar circumstances of each case, and to select among the available legal alternatives. A statement of reasons for the trial judge’s decision — unless otherwise obvious — is necessary to justify such appellate deference. Sheets, supra, at 887-88, 664 P.2d at 794-95.
Here, the reasons for changing venue away from Orofino in Clearwater County are obvious. A strong showing presumably was made of excessive publicity. But, as to not sequestering the jury, we are given no inkling of any legal reasoning which guided *193the trial court. The court mentioned a “waste of time,” but that makes no sense. Perhaps the court meant to say a waste of time and money. That would be some justification, but very slight. Attendant to any criminal trial it is inescapable that public moneys are going to be spent — sometimes a small fortune. But that is the price to be paid for maintaining our criminal justice system.
Absent any legal reasoning for not sequestering the jury, and where undue publicity by the Lewiston newspaper necessitated the change in venue from Orofino, presumptively it was error to try the case, whether the trial remained in Orofino or whether it was removed to Moscow in adjacent Latah County, without keeping that continuing publicity from the jury. The court’s failure to conduct a hearing or to set out any reasons, plus the manner in which the decision was predetermined and announced to the jury, makes the decision highly suspect.
Moreover, the publicity which preceded the trial and mandated the change of trial, then continued through the trial. And, unless I miss it from the record, the court made no request of the media that it not play up the trial. So, the trial proceeds with all of the publicity which had gone on before, some of which as concerns only the Lewiston Tribune1 counsel for defendant has documented in his brief, which is appended hereto as Appendix A. With that publicity and the trial involving other conduct of defendant and his wives and girl friends, going back as far as 13 years before the homicide, a goodly crowd was surely on hand. And, the trial judge by his non-sequestering ruling was made to appear as the best of persons.
THE JUMP FROM OROFINO TO MOSCOW
The majority also asserts there was no error in the change of venue from Orofino to Moscow. On March 11, 1982, defense counsel moved for a change of venue based on the voluminous pre-trial publicity given by the Lewiston Morning Tribune and requested the court to set the cause in a location outside of the publication area of the Lewiston Morning Tribune. On March 25, 1982, the trial court heard argument on the motion for a change of venue and granted it, reserving for a later date the designation of a place for the trial. On August 30, 1982, the district court ordered the cause set for trial in Latah County, also located in the Second District. Hence, although the district court granted defendant’s motion for a change of venue, the court completely ignored the reason the change of venue was requested: the defendant specifically requested the trial be held outside the distribution area of the Lewiston Morning Tribune. The district court moved the cause to a location within the circulation area of the Lewiston Morning Tribune — in fact, to a location closer to Lewiston, and certainly more accessible to reporters for the paper. This change of venue undermined completely defendant’s reason for requesting a change of venue. The only beneficiary discernible was the judge himself — who then presided over the trial in his own home town. Having some knowledge of the two areas involved, cultural, refined Moscow, and industrial Orofi-no, I cannot believe other than that the defendant was prejudiced by the change of venue which he had requested. As Justice Stevens well pointed out, a jury is the conscience of the community, the community being that from whence the jury is drawn.
Moreover, the change of venue to Latah County, with Moscow being the location of the county courtroom, only exacerbated the adverse pre-trial publicity problem defense counsel was attempting to correct with his request for a change of venue. Not only would the Lewiston Morning Tribune have more convenient access to the courtroom in Moscow, but the local Moscow *194newspaper, The Idahonian, also had easier access to trial; the combined circulation of these two newspapers is certainly much higher, hence, making the pre-trial, and then the trial, publicity much greater in Moscow than in Orofino. The district judge’s blatant disregard for the convergence of these factors made the granting of defendant’s motion for a change of venue worse than meaningless. The change of venue to Moscow escalated the already voluminous pre-trial publicity. Not to forget that this was the first torture murder ever in Idaho.
Moving the trial to Moscow, combined with the district court’s flagrant disregard for the purpose and necessity of sequestering a jury, displays an abysmal lack of recognition by the trial court of the realities of human nature. The jury was asked to do that which the court should have done for them: place them in a location free from any outside influence of family, friends or news reports. Likewise, what will plainly appear to most observers is also ignored by the majority today when it states: “There is no indication that any juror was exposed to prejudicial publicity during the course of the trial.” Hence, the purported naivete of the majority astounds this old country practitioner.
There is a difference between a refusal to change venue and the granting of a change of venue to a location more adverse than the original location of the trial. The majority states that it was not reversible error for the lower court to not move the trial to a venue “acceptable to the defendant” — if the defendant cannot establish that he did not actually receive a fair trial, and where there was no difficulty in selecting a jury. No one, not the defense counsel, and not this writer, contends that defendant can choose acceptable venue. The majority again is guilty of dealing in twisted phrases. Defendant did not attempt to dictate the place of new venue. His objection was to a trial at Moscow, or any place where the Lewiston paper had a large circulation. In other years the Court has not been so obtuse and unlistening.
THE CALIFORNIA CASE LAW AND THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF I.C. § 18-4001 AS CONCERNS TORTURE MURDER
The majority, upon observing the lack of any case law in Idaho to guide the Court in reviewing its first torture-murder case, properly turns to California. It was from California that our first Idaho Criminal Practice Act of 1864 was borrowed by the First Territorial Legislature. People v. Ah Choy, 1 Idaho 317 (1870). Torture murder was declared to be murder in the first degree by § 189 of the California Penal Code in the same language as that now found in I.C. § 18-4001. As in Idaho, the California legislature, even in those early days, saw no reason to define torture. The California legislature to this day has not defined torture murder. However, the Supreme Court of California did do so. Where Idaho has accepted a California criminal statute, ordinarily it will accept an interpretation of that statute made by the Supreme Court of that state. Citations are unnecessary. But, this Court has. also said that it is not bound to do so. Citations would be superfluous. Under present circumstances, where before this Court had cause to consider a proper definition of torture murder, the legislature intervened to furnish its definition.
Because some of that definition jibes with the judicial definition of the California court, there is good reason to apply the case law from California where we have no precedential case law to guide us. But, I am not in the least convinced that in doing so we can pick and choose. Rather, I firmly believe that where our legislative definition of torture murder, in part, obviously was borrowed from the California Supreme court’s definition, we should look to all case law from California for guidance. And, where the Idaho legislature has manufactured some alternative definitions of murder by torture which do away with the essential element of intent, then it behooves this Court to become extremely concerned with the constitutionality of such *195definition. Here at stake is a legislative definition of murder by torture wholly unlike anything we see in the California case law, upon which great reliance is placed. This Court has heretofore not shirked its obligation to examine the constitutionality of a legislative definition which criminalizes certain conduct. Less than eight years ago, Justice Shepard, in writing the Court’s opinion invalidating the legislature’s definition of prostitution, reasoned thusly:
Among English speaking people the term prostitution has a meaning which is historic and may be said to be well understood by persons of common intellect. At common law, prostitution was generally understood to apply only as against women and usually only in connection with sexual intercourse for hire. 63 Am. Jur.2d, Prostitution § 1; State v. Clark, 78 Iowa 492, 43 N.W. 273 (1889). Therefore if our legislature had not attempted to define prostitution the position of the State might be sustainable. However, contrary to the position of the State, there is no longer in Idaho a traditional definition of prostitution since I.C. § 18-5613 clearly reflects a legislative attempt to redefine prostitution more expansively with application to male as well as female and to also expand the traditional definition to include a proscription against homosexual and other deviate conduct.
The concept of void-for-vagueness arose from a common law practice of refusing to enforce legislation deemed too indefinite to be applied. See, Amsterdam, “The Yoid-for-Vagueness Doctrine in the Supreme Court,” 109 U.Pa.L. Rev. 67 (1960). It has evolved to a protection generally regarded as embodied in a Due Process Clause and prohibits holding a person “criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed.” U.S. v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617, 74 S.Ct. 808, 812, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954). In addition to this notion of “fair notice of warning” the doctrine is said to require reasonably clear guidelines to prevent “arbitrary and discriminating enforcement” and to prescribe a precise standard for the adjudication of guilt. Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974). See also, Amsterdam, supra, at 76. The principle consistently followed is that “a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law.” Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 1256, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926); Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 453, 59 S.Ct. 618 [619], 83 L.Ed. 888 (1939); Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972); State v. Pigge, 79 Idaho 529, 532, 322 P.2d 703, 705 (1957); State v. Thomas, 94 Idaho 592, 594, 494 P.2d 1036 (1972).
In the instant statute as it existed at the time in question here, the legislature sought to define the term “prostitution” but failed to use clear and unambiguous language to provide notice of the proscribed conduct. State v. Lopez, 98 Idaho 581, 589-90, 570 P.2d 259, 267-68 (1977) (emphasis added).
The situation here is exactly that which the Court encountered in Lopez, with one difference. Here,, we do not need to pass upon the constitutional issue if the Court is willing to concede the gross error earlier pointed out. I make reference to the charge of the complaint and the fatal (no play on words intended) variances therefrom in the trial court’s instructions. The defendant was charged with the fatal striking of the boy with the intent to inflict extreme pain, or with the intent to satisfy some sadistic inclination of the defendant, but the court instructed the jury that “It shall also be torture to inflict on a human being extreme and prolonged acts of brutality irrespective of proof of intent to cause suffering” — language which is found in § 18-4001, but which was wholly not included in the charge upon which the defendant was put to trial. And, as earlier *196pointed out, the trial court also, as though there were a two-count information, instructed the jury on the willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, the language of § 18-4003.
Now, if the Court lives up to its responsibility, it will reverse and remand for that gross error. In that event a word to the legislature may well suffice, and it will not be necessary to invalidate portions of § 18-4001. But, if the Court had lived up to its responsibility, it would have some time ago ruled that the framers of our Idaho Constitution, as reflected in the historical documentation of their debates, painstakingly assured that no person’s life would be taken as punishment for his crimes other than by a jury of his peers— the conscience of the community, and not an elected government official, to use the language of Justice Stevens.
Such being the state of affairs, if enough has not been written to arouse the other members of the Court, there is little to be gained by a one-person dissertation on the subject. I mention only that the very language of the Court’s 1977 Lopez opinion is clearly applicable. Beyond that, the legislative abolition of intent in its alternative definition of murder by torture is clearly in conflict with the first definition, that which was properly adopted from the California Supreme Court, and also in headlong conflict with § 18-114: “In every crime or public offense there must exist a union, or joint operation, of act and intent, or criminal negligence.” Under the following section, § 18-115, intent or intention may be established by circumstances, but it has always been required.
Returning briefly to the California case law on torture murder, it is to be first noted that People v. Steger, 16 Cal.3d 539, 128 Cal.Rptr. 161, 546 P.2d 665 (1976) was the case which precipitated the prosecuting attorney’s determination at the outset to attempt to bring in collateral acts of misconduct on defendant’s part as somehow proving that defendant was guilty of murder by torture on the 19th day of September, 1982.2 What the Steger Court said is *197best derived from the Pacific Reporter, complete with footnotes:
“Section 189 of the Penal Code provides in relevant part: ‘All murder which is perpetrated by means of ... torture, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing ... is murder of the first degree____’
“Three decades ago, this court strictly construed the definition of torture in section 189. In People v. Heslen (1945), Cal., 163 P.2d 21, 27, modified (1946), 27 Cal.2d 520, 165 P.2d 250, we said: ‘Implicit in that definition is the requirement of an intent to cause pain and suffering in addition to death. That is, the killer is not satisfied with killing alone. He wishes to punish, execute vengeance on, or extort something from his victim, and in the course, or as the result of inflicting pain and suffering, the victim dies. That intent may be manifested by the nature of the acts and circumstances surrounding the homicide.’
“This restrictive definition of torture was reemphasized in People v. Tubby (1949), 34 Cal.2d 72, 77, 207 P.2d 51, 54: ‘In determining whether the murder was perpetrated by means of torture the solution must rest upon whether the assailant’s intent was to cause cruel suffering on the part of the object of the attack, either for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion, or to satisfy some other untoward propensity. The test cannot be whether the victim merely suffered severe pain since presumably in most murders severe pain precedes death.’
“As will be shown below, we have consistently followed this strict construction of *198torture in cases applying section 189. However, a few Courts of Appeal, in cases somewhat similar to the present, have upheld torture murder convictions by liberally construing the Heslen and Tubby holdings.1 These courts have inferred the presence of ‘specific intent to cause cruel suffering’ almost exclusively from the severity of the wounds on the victim’s body. For example, the court in People v. Misquez (1957) supra, 152 Cal.App.2d 471, 480, 313 P.2d 206, 212, reasoned, ‘The brutal and revolting manner in which defendant mistreated the child leads inevitably to the conclusion that he intended to cause cruel pain and suffering.’ To determine whether such a liberal construction of Heslen and Tubby is permissible we must examine how torture fits into the scheme of first degree murder in California.
“Murder, the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought, is undoubtedly one of the most heinous crimes that can be committed in a civilized society. Given the gravity of the act, it may not be readily apparent why the law should distinguish between degrees of murder. In fact, the early common law made no distinctions: murder, regardless of its characteristics, was punished with death. (1 Warren on Homicide (1914) § 77, p. 353.) But in 1794 Pennsylvania adopted a statute defining two degrees of murder, and other states soon followed.
“There appear to be two major reasons for delineating separate degrees of murder and imposing different punishments. (See Hart, Punishment and Responsibility (1968) pp. 60-61; Pike, What is Second Degree Murder in California? (1936) 9 So.Cal.L. Rev. 112, 133.) First, some murders can more easily be prevented than others by the deterrent effect of severe penalties: e.g., a hired assassin is more likely to reflect upon the possibility of imprisonment for life than an enraged husband who shoots his wife in a drunken Saturday night quarrel. (See Zimring & Hawkins, Deterrence (1973) pp. 194 ff.) Second, society draws a moral distinction between murders: as morally wrong as murder per se is, some murders are more deplorable than others. Society instinctively senses a greater revulsion for a calculated, deliberate murder than it does for any other type of killing. As Professor Hart puts it, there is a distinction ‘universally felt between, e.g., the cold-blooded murderer out for gain and the woman who kills an imbecile child to whom she can no longer attend.’ (Hart, op. cit. supra at p. 61.) Only by appropriately circumscribing the application of first degree murder can society preserve that pervasive moral distinction.
“These goals are a significant aspect of the law of homicide in California. Under section 189 of the Penal Code, first degree murder is primarily wilful, deliberate, and premeditated murder. With a few limited exceptions, all other unlawful killing is second degree murder or manslaughter.
“In interpreting the statutory standard of wilful, deliberate, and premeditated murder, this court, perhaps with greater consistency than courts in many states, ‘affords more than lip service to the strict definitions.’ (Note, Deliberation and Premeditation in First Degree Murder (1961) 21 Md.L.Rev. 349, 353.) Thus, the prosecution is required to prove not only the elements of murder, but also the aggravating elements of first degree murder. (People v. Thomas (1945) 25 Cal.2d 880, 895, 156 P.2d 7.) We have held, ‘By conjoining the words “willful, deliberate, and premeditated” in its definition and limitation of the character of killings falling within murder of the first degree, the Legislature apparently emphasized its intention to require as an element of such crime substantially more reflection than may be involved in the mere formation of a specific intent to kill.’ (Id. at p. 900, 156 P.2d at p. 18.) Further, we have declared that ' “Deliberation means careful consideration and examination of the reasons for and against a choice or measure.” [Citation.]’ (People v. Bender (1945) 27 Cal.2d 164, 183, 163 P.2d 8, 19.)
“In this perspective the phrasing of section 189 becomes clearer: ‘All murder which is perpetrated by means of... torture, or by any other kind of willful, delib*199erate, and premeditated killing ... is murder of the first degree____’ In labeling torture as a ‘kind’ of premeditated killing, the Legislature requires the same proof of deliberation and premeditation for first degree torture murder that it does for other types of first degree murder.2
“The element of calculated deliberation is required for a torture murder conviction for the same reasons that it is required for most other kinds of first degree murder. It is not the amount of pain inflicted which distinguishes a torturer from another murderer, as most killings involve significant pain. (People v. Tubby (1949) supra, 34 Cal.2d 72, 77, 207 P.2d 51.) Rather, it is the state of mind of the torturer — the coldblooded intent to inflict pain for personal gain or satisfaction — which society condemns. Such a crime is more susceptible to the deterrence of first degree murder sanctions and comparatively more deplorable than lesser categories of murder.
“Accordingly, we hold that murder by means of torture under section 189 is murder committed with a wilful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to inflict extreme and prolonged pain. In determining whether a murder was committed with that intent, the jury may of course consider all the circumstances surrounding the killing. Among those circumstances, in many cases, is the severity of the victim’s wounds. We admonish against giving undue weight to such evidence, however, as the wounds could in fact have been inflicted in the course of a killing in the heat of passion rather than a calculated torture murder.
“We do not hold that a defendant must have had a premeditated intent to kill in order to be convicted of murder by means of torture; such an interpretation would render superfluous the specific inclusion of murder by torture in section 189. A defendant need not have any intent to kill to be convicted of this crime (People v. Mattison (1971) supra, 4 Cal.3d 177, 183, 93 Cal.Rptr. 185, 481 P.2d 193), but he or she must have the defined intent to inflict pain.
“Our conclusion is consistent with the prior opinions of this court on torture murder. The cases affirming convictions for murder by means of torture have, with one possible exception,3 involved willful, deliberate, and premeditated infliction of pain by the defendants. For example, in People v. Daugherty (1953), 40 Cal.2d 876, 256 P.2d 911, cert. den., 346 U.S. 827, 74 S.Ct. 47, 98 L.Ed. 352, defendant, prior to killing his wife, repeatedly threatened to make her suffer for her alleged infidelity. ‘He tore her nightgown from her, stabbed her several times and, from the dirt-filled abrasions on her thigh, must have dragged her along the ground. He evidently struck her in the face. And finally, when she was lying on the ground but still alive, he stood over her and kicked her.’ (Id. at pp. 886-887, 256 P.2d at p. 917.) The evidence of defendant’s planning and deliberation was held sufficient to convict him both of wilful, deliberate, and premeditated murder and murder by means of torture.
“People v. Turville (1959) supra, 51 Cal.2d 620, 335 P.2d 678, represents perhaps the paradigm torture case. There the defendants repeatedly hit and kicked their victim in an effort to persuade him to open his safe. The pain was clearly inflicted in a calculated manner, and this court upheld a torture murder conviction.
“In contrast, the cases reversing torture murder convictions have focused on the lack of evidence of calculation. In People v. Bender (1945) supra, 27 Cal.2d 164, 163 P.2d 8, defendant, in a fit of anger, beat and choked his victim to death. We held, ‘The killer who, heedless of the suffering of his victim, in hot anger and with the specific intent of killing, inflicts the severe pain which may be assumed to attend strangulation, has not in contemplation of the law the same intent as one who strangles with the intention that his victim shall suffer.’ (Id. at p. 177, 163 P.2d at p. 16.)
“In Tubby, the defendant for no discernible reason beat his stepfather to death. According to the dissent, ‘The evidence clearly indicates that defendant chased his victim about the house inflicting terrific punishment upon him. There was blood on the porch, and on the walls and floor of *200practically every room in the house. The stove and stovepipe had been knocked out of place and some of the furniture had been broken during the affray. When the officers arrived, they found deceased had been beaten “practically beyond recognition.” ’ (34 Cal.2d at p. 81, 207 P.2d at p. 57.) Even so, the majority concluded that ‘It is too apparent to admit of serious doubt that the unprovoked assault was an act of animal fury produced when inhibitions were removed by alcohol. The record dispels any hypothesis that the primary purpose of the attack was to cause the deceased to suffer____ The evidence is therefore insufficient as a matter of law to support the verdict on the theory that the homicide was murder by torture.’ (Id. at p. 78, 207 P.2d at p. 55.)
“An even more gruesome murder was reviewed by this court in People v. Anderson (1965), 63 Cal.2d 351, 46 Cal.Rptr. 763, 406 P.2d 43, with similar results. In Anderson, defendant, angered at the 10-year-old daughter of his mistress, stabbed the child a total of 60 times. ‘One of the cuts extended from the rectum through the vagina. Additionally, the tongue was cut.’ (Id. at p. 356, 46 Cal.Rptr. at p. 766, 406 P.2d at p. 46.) Again, we held that ‘the evidence in the instant case shows only an explosion of violence without the necessary intent that the victim shall suffer____ Accordingly, the evidence was not sufficient to convict defendant of murder in the first degree on the theory that death resulted from acts of torture.’ (Id. at p. 360, 46 Cal.Rptr. at p. 768, 406 P.2d at p. 48.)
“It is clear from the foregoing analysis that on the record of the case at bar defendant cannot be guilty of first degree murder by torture. Viewed in the light most favorable to the People, the evidence shows that defendant severely beat her stepchild. But there is not one shred of evidence to support a finding that she did so with coldblooded intent to inflict extreme and prolonged pain. Rather, the evidence introduced by the People paints defendant as a tormented woman, continually frustrated by her inability to control her stepchild’s behavior. The beatings were a misguided, irrational and totally unjustifiable attempt at discipline; but they were not in a criminal sense wilful, deliberate, or premeditated.
“The People emphasize that the child’s wounds were inflicted over a iong period of time. In some cases this fact might lend support to a torture murder conviction. For example, if a defendant had trussed up his victim, proof that pain was inflicted continuously for a lengthy period could well lead to a conclusion that the victim was tortured. But in the present case the fact that Kristen was injured on numerous occasions only supports the theory that several distinct ‘explosions of violence’ took place, as an attempt to discipline a child by corporal punishment generally involves beating her whenever she is deemed to misbehave.4
“Child-battering is a crime universally abhorred by civilized societies, particularly when it results in death. Yet our revulsion is based not so much on the means of killing, as on the realization that a defenseless, innocent life has been destroyed. If defendant, instead of repeatedly beating her stepchild, had fatally shot her once in the head, it could not be claimed seriously that the shooting would be any less subject to deterrence or any less morally offensive than the beating in the present case. Yet the shooting could not be categorized as murder by means of torture. Nor can defendant’s conduct here, however, deplorable it appears to be.
“In holding the evidence does not support a conviction of first degree murder, we do not imply, of course, that a murder of a child can never be torture murder. In appropriate circumstances a child batterer can be found to be a torturer. All we hold is that here the prosecution did not prove defendant murdered her stepchild with a wilful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to inflict extreme and prolonged pain. It follows that the trial court erred in giving an instruction on torture murder.5 As stated in People v. Anderson (1965) supra, 63 Cal.2d 351, 360, 46 Cal.Rptr. 763, 768, 406 *201P.2d 43, 48, ‘ “It is error to give an instruction which, although correctly stating a principle of law, has no application to the facts of the case.” ’ ”
Steger, supra, 128 Cal.Rptr. at 163-67, 546 P.2d at 667-71 (emphasis added).
It is seen from reading the above that as the prosecutor noted at the preliminary hearings, intent of proof to kill is not required in a torture murder case. The proof that is required is proof of intent to inflict suffering from extreme pain — which in and of itself proves the torture. Or, alternatively, and one supposes the language to be aimed at off-track sadistic religious cults, where the pain is not inflicted with the intent to cause suffering, or to execute vengeance, or to extort, but to satisfy some sadistic inclination. I.C. § 18-4003, Penal Code.
INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE OF UNRELATED CONDUCT
The prosecutor made a poor choice in not charging by a count for a deliberate, wilful and premeditated killing. A poorer choice was to attempt to bolster up a doubtful torture murder case by attempting to prove an intent to torture the boy by the use of unrelated antecedent conduct from which the intent might be inferred. Counsel for defendant’s assessment of the admission of such evidence is: “Clearly any small amount of probative value that the testimonies of Dally, Jacobson, and Nelson had to the crime with which Gene Stuart is charged, is far outweighed by the enormous prejudice that such testimony engendered against the defendant.” I agree, adding only that such is an understatement. The senseless killing of a three-year-old boy would have in the first placed engendered as much jury antipathy toward the defendant as the prosecutor could have wanted. To “try” the defendant at the same time for uncharged bad conduct, whether criminal or not, makes it impossible to conclude that the jury might have convicted the defendant without having heard evidence unrelated to the alleged crime of torture murder.
*202PROPORTIONALITY
As I wrote in Sivak or Bainbridge, the proportionality requirement prescribed by the Supreme Court and in turn adopted by the Idaho legislature is virtually meaningless. Proportionality in capital sentencing in Idaho will only result when first degree murder charges are all tried to a jury, and the jury also as the conscience of the community makes the awesome decision of life or death where a first degree murder verdict is returned.
How there can ever be any real proportionality continues to escape me where prosecutors exercise a divine right to reduce the charge and to ask or not ask for the death penalty, as may at the moment so move them. Recently the citizens of Ada County were given to understand that the prosecutor had decided that on a guilty plea to the execution-style murder of a girl in her twenties, he would not ask for the death penalty. Other defendants so accused do not fare so well. Such matters are not for mortal prosecutors, but for mortal jurors.
APPENDIX A
The following pages are true and correct photocopies of newspaper coverage given appellant’s trial by the Lewiston Morning Tribune, a daily newspaper with its offices at Lewiston, Idaho and which circulates commonly in the Moscow, Idaho area. Additionally, the following include photocopies of coverage given appellant’s trial from October 5, 1982 until October 14, 1982 by the Daily Idahonian, a daily newspaper printed and circulated in Moscow, Idaho.

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*217Stuart about,” said the jury foreman. “The verdict speaks for itself.” Other than innocent, the jury was given the choice of three verdicts — guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter. A verdict of voluntary manslaughter, which calls for the element of the heat of passion, according to Idaho law, was not offered as an option. The jurors were Wayne S. Alexander, Patricia J. Barkley, Janet T. Eobeck, Carolyn M. Gravelle, Bryon R. Henry, Marilyn K. Jenkins, Gary Francis Nial, Joseph D. Randall, Richard A. Rueppel, Dorothy Postlewait, Dorothy Thomas and Kathleen Walker. During final arguments, Calhoun and Kinney offered the jury opposing portraits of Stuart. “If you want to see the picture that Gene Francis Stuart painted...he painted it of himself...a brutal, sadistic torturer,” said Calhoun, calling for a first-degree murder conviction. “There is no malice or wickedness in that man’s heart,” Kinney countered. “He’s not a murderer. I ask you to return a verdict of manslaughter.” Calhoun contended that Stuart tortured Robert Miller in an attempt to make the child into “the perfect little robot” to fit “Gene Stuart’s demented picture of what a child should be.” But Kinney said the boy’s death was the product of injuries administered by a person who did not know how to discipline a child. “I’m not trying to minimize the tragic death of that boy,” Kinney said. “W¿ have never, never attempted to convince you that a tragedy did not occur, that a crime did not happen. I will agree with Mr. Calhoun that the child was struck too often and too hard. I’m not asking that you excuse this man’s conduct...we can’t in a civilized society do that...but we can seek justice.” Justice, Calhoun said, can be served only if Stuart is made to pay for what he did to the Miller child. “Those bruises you see on the body of Robert Miller,” said Calhoun, referring to pictures of the battered child, “are not the product of spanking. They’re the product of beating.” He challenged Stuart’s own testimony that he struck Robert Miller once with his fist. “I submit that those tears in the (boy’s) liver were caused by several pokes of the finger.” Robert Miller died, according to an autopsy report, of internal bleeding from the liver, caused by a severe blow or blows to the abdomen. Stuart, according to testimony from several prosecution witnesses, had a habit of poking people in the chest when he became angry. Stuart denied that on the stand, but conceded that he had poked Robert Miller on the day the child died, but not hard enough to causes bruises. Calhoun said that the evidence showed that Robert Miller had been dead for perhaps two hurs before Stuart brought the boy to the Clearwater Valley Hospital emergency room. Stuart had testified that the boy was alive at the time. Kinney suggested that the boy’s liver did not rupture until Stuart tried in vain to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the child. Calhoun accused Stuart of lying when the defendant testified that he had never punched a woman during his entire life. Several of Stuart’s former wives and girlfriends testified that they received repeated brutal beatings at Stuart’s hands. “He’s lied to us,” Calhoun said. “I’m not saying they (the women) lied,” Kinney said. “I’m saying all of their incidents began with a speck of truth and over a course of time, what one wants to believe is enhanced.” Stuart testified that he disciplined Robert Miller on the day the child died, for “boobing,” a word Stuart used to mean pouting or sulking.

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*219Murder defendant claims CPR bruised child’s body X&Mo/Uí/Ia) ío/ó/?*-Gene Stuart told Clearwater Valley Hospital emergency room workers he bruised the lifeless body of three-year-old Robert Miller while attempting to perform CPR on the child, the doctor who treated the child testified in Moscow today. “I asked him (Stuart) how all the bruises got on the boy’s chest,” Dr. John Floyd said of his first conversation with Stuart in the emergency room. “He (Stuart) said ‘by poking him,”* Floyd told the court. “I certainly got the impression that it (the poking) was related to CPR efforts.” Floyd was the physician in charge of Orofino hospital’s emergency room on the evening of Sept. 19, 19¿1, when Stuart, 33, an auto repairman, arrived at the hospital with the “limp and lifeless” body of the child in his arms. The child was dead when Stuart arrived, but Floyd and other emergency room workers attempted to revive hint with CPR and electro-shock for about 40 minutes after their arrival, Floyd said. Floyd said he noted between 15 and 25 small, round bruises on the boy’s chest, and his buttocks and under his chin during the efforts to revive the child. Floyd’s call to the .Clearwater County sheriff shortly after pronouncing boy dead lead to first-degree murder charges against Stuart and to the Moscow trial before a jury of five men and seven women selected earlier this week. Stuart acted agitated and demanded that the emergency room doctor and nurses help the boy, Floyd said. “But the amount of anxiety he was showing was probably appropriate for what was happening,” Floyd said. “But during the resuscitation efforts I became highly suspicious about (the origins) of the unusual cause of death and about possible child abuse.” During cross-examination, defense attorney Robert Kinney questioned Floyd about the techniques used to revive the boy and if those techniques might have caused bruising or burns on the child’s body. Although saying that some procedures might have caused bruising or bums, Floyd testified that he saw the bruises before the medics began working with the boy. The origin of the bruises is expected to become an issue later in the case when the prosecution, headed by Clearwater County Prosecutor Steve Calhoun, will attempt to prove that Stuart intentionally tortured Miller to death with systematic and habitual beatings culminating in the child’s death. Calhoun summed up his case for the newly selected jurors Tuesday afternoon: “Kathy Miller, the mother of the child, will be here to testify,” Calhoun said. “She’ll testify that she met him (Stuart) and started dating him about a year before the murder took place. “She’ll also testify about being pushed around by Mr. Stuart herself and about acts of violence committed by Mr. Stuart on Robert Miller;” Calhoun said. Stuart often disciplined Robert Miller by poking him in the chest with his forefinger, severe spankings and cold showers, Calhoun said in outlining Kathy Miller’s testimony for the jury. The beatings drove Miller to move out of the home she shared with Stuart on two oc-cassions, Calhoun said. However, the two had reconciled and were living together at the time of her son’s death, he said.

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. Defense counsel points out that the Moscow circulation of the Lewiston Tribune far exceeds that paper’s Orofino circulation.

. When the prosecutor at the preliminary hearing called as his first witness a person not privy to the homicide of the boy, defense counsel objected, and the following took place:
THE COURT (To the prosecutor): Do you wish to be heard?
MR. CALHOUN: Yes, sir. As the Court’s aware, I did anticipate there would be an objection on this ground and I had intended to — or hoped to have a written memorandum prepared but I don’t have at this point. We will have, hopefully, before the Preliminary Hearing is over.
The charge in this matter, Murder by Torture, requires an intent to torture. It does not require an intent to kill. It requires a specific intent to torture. The Court may be aware of a case The People versus Steiger where the California Supreme Court ruled on a Murder by Torture case involving some similarities to this case but involving much more savage beating than this case did. The Court ruled that there wasn’t enough showing of intent to torture. It showed a violent fit of temper. The State has the burden of showing an intent to torture in this case and I feel from the case the only chance of showing that is showing a propensity on the part of the defendant, Gene Francis Stuart, to inflict pain on people over a long period of time and that he actually got some enjoyment out of it. We’ve consulted with a psychiatrist, Dr. Gombus, who is a proposed witness in this case, and it would be the State’s intention to show that over a period of years with different wives, girl friends, different people, that Gene Francis Stuart had shown symptoms or characteristics of what Dr. Gombus refers to as a sexual psychopath — he derives enjoyment out of inflicting pain on other people — and I think the State will be able to show this with the testimony in this case and I think that we can tie it up.
I would encourage the Court since, of course, there’s no jury here, that it’s the Court, that the Court can take the testimony, listen to it, consider it, and if the State fails to tie this up or show sufficient basis for it then the Court can exclude it and not consider the testimony in its decision as to whether or not to bind over. But, if the State is able to tie it in and able to show it is relevant then the Court can consider it in it's decision to bind over. Idaho law on it, I’ve checked it, and of course the Court, I’m sure, is aware it’s fairly well established in the law that the proof of other offenses in criminal prosecutions is acceptable under certain circumstances — that’s to show motive, knowledge, intent.
I think motive and intent, of course, are the two main things I’m going to be able to — trying to show by his past actions. What is the motive for torturing somebody else? What is the intent in inflicting pain on somebody else; *197beating somebody else? How do you show that? Well, you show it by prior tendencies to do this type of thing, by showing — the Statute states that the torture must be inflicted either for the purpose of extorting something, for revenge, for causing pain to the individual, or for getting some perverse gratification — or untoward gratification is the way it’s phrased, I believe. I believe it’s necessary to show this background in order to do that, and obviously, if the State fails to tie that in then the Court can exclude that and not consider it, but I think it’s essential that the Court allow the testimony so that it can make a decision as to whether or not it is relevant.
MR. KINNEY: Your Honor, may I comment to Mr. Calhoun's comments?
At the outset it appears that Mr. Calhoun is offering the Court an Offer of Proof concerning Dr. Gombus’ opinion of a man similarly situated. I am not aware that Dr. Gombus has interviewed the defendant or intends to speak concerning any of his contact with the defendant.
What the Prosecutor is attempting to glean from this witness is incidents that occurred, for the most part, nearly nine years ago. There are — from reading the statements of this witness there are some incidents which I believe he intends to elicit concerning matters over a year ago. Nothing, nothing that this witness has to offer relates in any way, shape, or form to the death of Robert Miller.
With this, I think that the Prosecutor is correct that it is his burden that he must show the intent to torture. However, there is no way that this witness is going to offer intent anywhere near in proximity to the offense in nature to render it probative evidence here. What it would do, and what I fear it will do, is exactly the opposite. The State and I — and I join the State in the opinion that this is not a jury trial and the Court is well capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. However, I think that to allow this testimony so remote in time would unduly prejudice this defendant at a Probable Cause Hearing and I object for that reason. It’s too remote in time element.
THE COURT: If I understand the State's theory, you are going to lay foundation showing — you are going to attempt to lay a foundation showing motive and intent and that it has progressively gotten worse or better or whatever starting in about 1970 to the present?
MR. CALHOUN: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And then this is going to be a foundation for a hypothetical question to a psychiatrist?
MR. CALHOUN: Yes, sir, it will be a foundation for a hypothetical for a psychiatrist, and also it has value in and of itself and I think once all the testimony is in it will show a continuous change of a progressively worsening situation, and the witnesses will tie each other’s testimony in, and I feel that when all the evidence is in it will be sufficiently tied in to show the relevance of it and to be used for a hypothetical question.
THE COURT: I’ll take your motion under advisement, Mr. Kinney, and I will — I’m going to allow them to proceed to tie them up. If not, be sure to remind me of your pending motion before the close of the case.
MR. KINNEY: Will the Court consider my objections to be continuing in nature throughout the line of this questioning?
THE COURT: So considered.
You may proceed.
MR. CALHOUN: Thank you, your Honor.

 See, e.g., People v. Lawhon (1963), 220 Cal.App.2d 311, 33 Cal.Rptr. 718; People v. Butler (1962), 205 Cal.App.2d 437, 23 Cal.Rptr. 118; People v. Misquez (1957), 152 Cal.App.2d 471, 313 P.2d 206. See also State v. Kountz (1972), 108 Ariz. 459, 501 P.2d 931.

 We have said that ‘When a killing is perpetrated by means of torture, the means used is conclusive evidence of malice and premeditation, and the crime is murder of the first degree.’ (People v. Turville (1959) 51 Cal.2d 620, 632, 335 P.2d 678, cert. den. 360 U.S. 939, 79 S.Ct. 1465, 3 L.Ed.2d 1551.) For each case, however, the question which must first be answered is whether there was 'torture' within the meaning of the statute. It is possible to inflict severe and prolonged pain on another without deliberation or premeditation, but it may not be torture under section 189. (Cf. People v. Mattison (1971) 4 Cal.3d 177, 93 Cal.Rptr. 185, 481 P.2d 193 (sale of lethal methyl alcohol to fellow prison inmate held not to be first degree murder by poison in absence of any proof of intent to kill or injure).)

 In People v. Gilliam (1952), 39 Cal.2d 235, 246 P.2d 31, defendant, for no reason at all, beat and trampled to death a fellow prison inmate he had just met. It is arguable whether he had a calculated intent to inflict extreme pain on his victim or whether his attack was the type of explosion of violence born of ‘hot anger’ and ‘animal fury’ which the court in People v. Tubby classified as second degree murder. (34 Cal.2d at pp. 77-78, 207 P.2d 51.) The majority, upholding a torture murder conviction, emphasized that defendant gouged out his victim’s eye and that the sadistic episode consumed considerable time. Justice Carter dissented on the basis of Tubby.

 This theory is consistent with the literature on the battered child syndrome, which has been judicially recognized in this state. (People v. Jackson (1971) 18 Cal.App.3d 504, 506-508, 95 Cal.Rptr.919.) While obviously it is impossible to typify all child-battering parents, one survey of the studies in the field concludes: 'the abuser tends to suffer from emotional pressures which are not directly related to the child himself, focuses his own general feelings of frustration and anger on the one child, and expresses his emotions through an immature and uncontrolled display of physical abuse of the child.’ (Italics added.) (Note, The Battered Child: Logic in Search of Law (1971) 8 San Diego L.Rev. 364, 375.) The description seems applicable to the present defendant: her uncontrolled outbursts of frustration appear inconsistent with a theory of deliberate torture murder.

 The court also gave general first degree murder instructions on wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing. However there was no evidence of premeditation other than that related to torture. It was conceded on appeal that the prosecution tried the case entirely on a murder by torture theory.