Court Opinion

ID: 9612926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:12:21.978644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:23.689559
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring specially:
In this case, the defendants’ sentences were reviewed on appeal by this Court and affirmed. State v. Martinez, 111 Idaho 281, 723 P.2d 825 (1986). It must be apparent that in an appeal from a trial court’s denial of an Idaho Criminal Rule 35 motion to reduce sentence the proceeding is not merely a rehearing of the earlier appellate decision. The Rule 35 proceeding is, as the Court’s opinion points out, a plea for leniency which vests almost total discretion in the trial court. On appeal from a denial of a Rule 35 reduction of sentence we are not rehearing our decision in State v. Martinez, 111 Idaho 281, 723 P.2d 825; nor are we rehearing the trial court’s original sentencing decision. It would be difficult to imagine any circumstance in which it could be said that the trial court erred in deciding not to grant a Rule 35 request for leniency.
The defendants’ Rule 35 plea for leniency is a matter solely within the discretion of the trial court and, accordingly, the trial court’s order should be affirmed.