Court Opinion

ID: 9625939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:56:46.43617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:23.613320
License: Public Domain

SCHWARTZMAN, Judge,
dissenting.
I am constrained to dissent with two as-' pects of the majority decision.
1. Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel: Failure To File A Rule 35 Motion For Reduction Of Sentence.
A brief procedural history is in order to place this issue into perspective. Small’s direct appeal from the trial court was finally completed on December 11, 1984. State v. Small, 107 Idaho 504, 690 P.2d 1336. The principal issue addressed in the appeal was whether the trial court abused its discretion by imposing too severe a sentence. At the time the appeal was filed, Idaho Criminal Rule 35 permitted a trial court to reduce a sentence within 120 days after affirmance on appeal or any order of the Supreme Court denying review of or having the effect of upholding a judgment of conviction. Thus, jurisdictionally speaking, Small would have had until April 11, 1985, to file a motion for reduction of sentence. This was never done by either her trial or appellate counsel.
I fully recognize that Small’s post-eonviction petition is hardly a model of clarity and specificity in regard to even raising this issue. However, her petition does request, in the form of relief, not only a new trial, but alternatively “a reduction in sentence.” In addition, the trial court did allude to this issue at a hearing on October 7, 1994, and invited counsel to include it in his brief.
As counsel for Small now states in his brief before this Court, “[ajgain, what possible trial tactic could explain the failure to file such a motion? The answer: There is none.” If Small is denied the opportunity to even raise the issue through a post-conviction act petition, she is left in the anomalous position of having three different attorneys fail to assist her in this regard. I would permit her to have a hearing on this issue, fully recognizing that even if she prevailed to the extent of being allowed to file a belated Rule 35 on the prong of ineffective assistance of counsel, the trial court could summarily deny the same without a hearing.
2. Newly Discovered Evidence: Prong (3) That It Will Probably Produce An Acquittal.
The majority opinion finds that three of the four Drapeau standards have been met, but upholds the summary disposition under the Riverside v. Ritchie rubric that where “evidentiary facts are not disputed and the trial court rather than a jury will be the trier of fact, summary judgment is appropriate, despite the possibility of conflicting inferences because the court alone will be responsible for resolving the conflict between inferences.” However, the evidentiary posture of this case far transcends, in my opinion, a conflict between inferences, as the trial court is actually weighing the evidence and resolv*337ing issues of credibility from a cold record.1 Certainly, it is within the court’s discretion to weigh the newly discovered evidence and conclude that it lacks credibility and would probably not produce an acquittal. See, e.g., State v. Fields, 127 Idaho 904, 913, 908 P.2d 1211, 1220 (1995). Recognizing that the post-conviction act judge was not the same judge who presided over the trials of Small and McKinney, I think this determination must, and can only, be made after giving Small the opportunity to present her witness at an evidentiary hearing, subject to full cross-examination.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent and would remand for a hearing on the two issues presented herein.

. The quoted portion from the memorandum decision makes this abundantly clear. Thus, McKinney’s affidavit is not being accepted as "true,” but only for the proposition that he would testify as such if called as a witness.