Court Opinion

ID: 9577938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:35.057231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:31.193858
License: Public Domain

ON DENIAL OF PETITION FOR REHEARING
BISTLINE, Justice.
Doubting that the Court’s opinion would or could be changed were a rehearing to be granted, and observing that the door is being specifically kept open in order that the trial court may reconsider the sentence
*285imposed, on another review of the opinion of the Court of Appeals, State v. Martinez, 109 Idaho 61, 704 P.2d 965 (1985), I write only to submit that that opinion is well written, and is patently sound. This Court’s June 16, 1986 opinion failed to observe that the Court of Appeals rearranged the serving of the various consecutive sentences which had been imposed by the trial court. In doing so, that court was careful to affirm the fifteen-year fixed term for the aggravated battery and ruled that it would be served first, stating: “[W]e fully agree with the capable and conscientious district judge that the maximum fifteen-year sentence was appropriate for the aggravated battery.” Martinez, supra, 109 Idaho at 69, 704 P.2d at 973.
The Court of Appeals, however, understandably was concerned with the imposition of thirty years for sexual crimes which, though labeled rape and lewd conduct, in essence were rape and sodomy— much as was so in the State v. Scroggins, 110 Idaho 380, 716 P.2d 1152 (1985), which was worse only in that it culminated in murder. The Court of Appeals at p. 68 of 109 Idaho, p. 972 of 704 P.2d, set forth the trial judge’s remarks at sentencing where he made clear his view that the defendants were appropriately entitled to the death penalty. At first blush, it is doubtful that many civilized persons would disagree with that view. I suspect that every judge or justice who has reviewed this case was at first of the same mind. But, as I comprehend the Court of Appeals decision, it is impermissible to allow sixty years to stand for the sex crimes and the related kidnapping, in addition to the fifteen-years for aggravated assault, where the sixty years appears to have been laid on in order to enhance beyond fifteen years the sentence for the savagely administered injury. Each crime should be punished independently, and it is my perception now that this is what guided the Court of Appeals in allowing the aggravated battery sentence to stand, while reducing the sex crime and kidnapping sentences. Accordingly, I do not believe that this Court should have interfered with the Court of Appeals decision. On prior occasions I have noted that it is that court which bears almost the entire brunt of sentence review. Our June opinion observes that “the Court of Appeals held that the trial court had ascribed no real consideration to the possibility of rehabilitation,” p. 828, and that this is true is abundantly clear from that court’s opinion, 109 Idaho at 67-69, 704 P.2d at 971-973. The Court of Appeals acted properly under Idaho case law in taking the action which it deemed appropriate. Nor does our June 1986 opinion say otherwise; nor could it. The Court of Appeals fulfilled its function by cranking in factors from State v. Wolfe, 99 Idaho 382, 582 P.2d 728 (1978), which the trial judge, in his understandable and righteous outrage, refused to consider.
In a classic anomaly, our June 1986 opinion affirms the sentences imposed, but at the same time instructs the trial judge to consider the Wolfe case, and then re-examine its sentences in light thereof. This, of course, is exactly what the Court of Appeals sought to accomplish. While it is true that the Court of Appeals could have vacated the trial court judgment imposing sentences, and remanded for resentencing in light of Wolfe, it was equally proper for that court to modify the sentences as it did.