Court Opinion

ID: 9627423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:43:26.526515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:49.080469
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting, with whom HUNTLEY, Justice, joins:
I.
Under the “teachings” of the majority opinion in State of Idaho v. Harmon, 106 Idaho 73, 685 P.2d 814 (1984), it remains the law in Idaho that antiquated and poorly worded statutes criminalizing certain sexual acts adequately forewarn the people of this state — not because the statute itself is sufficient, but because a variety of 3-2 opinions of the Idaho Supreme Court issued over 30 years supplied the deficiencies. This is patently absurd and is even more ridiculous than the adage that everyone is chargeable with knowledge of statutory law. It is now, with today’s opinion, abundantly clear that this Court, as presently constituted, is not in the least inclined to involve itself where such legislation is involved, no matter how compelling the necessity for doing so, and notwithstanding the views of the well respected United States District Court for the District of Idaho, which dared to tread where this Court does not. See, dissenting opinion of Bistline, J., in State v. Harmon, supra, where the observation was made that this Court has steadfastly refused to re-examine the validity of those 1952 cases, which are cited therein.
II.
In Schwartzmiller v. Winters, 99 Idaho 18, 576 P.2d 1052 (1978), Justice Shepard, writing for a unanimous Court, overturned the defendant’s conviction because the prosecution had withheld from defense *95counsel information which tended to show that the complaining witness was untruthful. Thus it was the view of this Court that the due process clauses of the Idaho Constitution, art. I, § 18, and of the United States Constitution, “do at least ensure that criminal trials shall be fundamentally fair.” 99 Idaho at 19, 576 P.2d at 1053.
The opinion went on to add:
The credibility of the alleged victim from the preliminary hearing through the trial was the determining factor in the innocence or guilt of the accused. The fact that the alleged victim had committed perjury and had suborned the commission of perjury might tend to negate the guilt of the accused by increasing the likelihood that the alleged victim’s entire charge was a fabrication.
99 Idaho at 20, 576 P.2d at 1053.
Now, six scant years later, the Court’s opinion disposes of claimed error in excluding evidence of falsity on the part of one of the victim-witnesses by observing only that “The exclusion of that line of testimony was not error” because “appellant failed to demonstrate ... that the witness’s previous allegations of sexual misconduct against another were false.” This is simply putting the cart before the horse. The jury, had it heard the proffered evidence, might have concluded “that the alleged victim’s entire charge was a fabrication.” 99 Idaho at 20, 576 P.2d at 1053. And, true, it might not have, but the defendant would have had the fundamentally fair trial alluded to in our 1978 Schwartzmiller opinion. The fact of an acquittal, conceded in the majority opinion, for certain, presents a prima facie case of the “demonstrably false” criterion of the Indiana case cited and quoted in the majority opinion. It was for the jury in the first instance, not this Court, to decide whether the defendant had sufficiently shown the witness’s lack of credibility.
If there is any distinction to be found in the Court’s holding today, compared to what we said six years ago, it is that a defendant may not attempt to impeach a witness’s credibility other than by offering proof that the witness has admitted to lying.
III.
The charges here were allegations of two separate and distinct crimes against two different individuals. The circumstances of the respective crimes were as much alike as say, burglarizing a grocery store in Lewiston in June, and another store in Grangeville a month later. I suppose it could be said of the latter case that the mere fact that a person makes his living by burglarizing, ensures, without more, the existence of the “common plan or scheme” which the majority so readily declares to link these two separate crimes. In any event, however, the prejudicial impact of such a joinder upon a jury is so obvious as to require absolutely no further comment, other than to draw attention to State of Idaho v. Abel, 104 Idaho 865, 664 P.2d 772 (1983).
IV.
Having by ipse dixit declared that the two crimes were but “parts of a common scheme or plan,” the majority, with even greater ease, disposes of claimed error in instructing the jury as to the testimony of the two witnesses corroborating each other. This, too, is reminiscent of the Court’s opinion in State v. Abel, supra, and again is a judicial philosophy entirely repugnant to the Court’s promise of a fundamentally fair trial.