Court Opinion

ID: 9845326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:19:00.127234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:01.221423
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting from the Denial of the Petition for Rehearing.
The motion for a rehearing should be granted. Obviously the authority presented in the two dissents filed by Justice Johnson and myself did not gain a response from any of the three justices who comprise the majority, from which it follows that the same were deemed of no moment. That is an acceptable fact of life. But it is not acceptable that the majority does not deign to make any response to the defendant’s sole spokesman, Mr. Van Bishop.
I. THE EXCLUSION OF HISPANICS FROM THE JURY POOL
Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1978), reaffirmed a criminal defendant’s right to a jury of peers drawn from a “fair and reasonable representation of the community.” Once the defendant makes a prima facie showing that the jury failed to represent a cross-section of the community, the burden shifts to the state to show “that a significant state interest [is] manifestly and primarily advanced by those aspects of the jury-selection process, such as exemption criteria, that result in the disproportionate exclusion of a distinctive group.” Id., 439 U.S. at 367-68, 99 S.Ct. at 670.
The majority concluded that Paz made his prima facie case under Duren. That conclusion is not disputed. Where the majority and I part company is in its determination that the state will not be required to meet its rebuttal burden under Duren because “it would be a manifest miscarriage of justice if the state jury selection system was overturned due to the reliance by the State upon Paz’s failure to make out a prima facie case of underrepresentation.” 118 Idaho at 552, 798 P.2d at 11.
In the criminal context, error which was not raised at trial cannot be raised on appeal unless it constitutes fundamental error. See State v. Cariaga, 95 Idaho 900, 523 P.2d 32 (1974); State v. Haggard, 94 Idaho 249, 486 P.2d 260 (1971). Error is fundamental when it “goes to the foundation or basis of a defendant’s rights or ... to the foundation of the case or take[s] from the defendant a right which was essential to his defense and which no court could or ought to permit him to waive.” Smith v. State, 94 Idaho 469, 475 n. 13, 491 P.2d 733, 739 n. 13 (1971), quoting State v. Garcia, 46 N.M. 302, 309, 128 P.2d 459, 462 (1942). Clearly the fundamental error doctrine focuses upon the right of the defendant to a fair trial. To my knowledge, no court has held that trial error committed by the state can constitute fundamental error, the commission of which operates to the benefit of the state and to a defendant’s detriment. The failure of the state to present any evidence at trial to fulfill its Duren-imposed rebuttal burden is definitely not fundamental error. To paraphrase a popular maxim: The State’s failure to present evidence does not rise to a manifest injustice.
II. THE VAGUENESS OF “AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCES”
The majority refuses to tailor the statutorily prescribed aggravating circumstances in any way that would provide guidance to sentencing judges attempting to avoid the “arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty.” Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 428, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 1764, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980). The result of this judicial abdication is that sentencing judges have no assistance from this Court in determining “what sets [a] particular murder apart — not from other crimes — but *567from the ‘norm’ of first degree murder?” Charboneau, 116 Idaho at 171, 774 P.2d at 341 (Bistline, J., dissenting). “Utter disregard for human life” and “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel manifesting exceptional depravity,” as those terms have been defined by the majority, are “nothing more than kitchen sink aggravating circumstances which enable the state to make every first degree murderer not just a candidate for, but an actual recipient of, the harshest and most final of all criminal penalties.” Id., 116 Idaho at 172, 774 P.2d at 342.
III.CONSIDERATION OF THE VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT AT SENTENCING
Permitting errors in capital cases to be reviewed under the harmless error standard will only serve to accentuate the problem with lack of guidance for district judges. The Court in Charboneau recognized this fact when it stated:
In a matter as awesome as the decision whether to impose the death penalty, a strict compliance with the procedures for sentencing is required. Even a well intentioned and conscientious effort by the trial court to avoid considering the hearsay contained in the letter does not suffice.
State v. Charboneau, 116 Idaho 129, 149, 774 P.2d 299, 319 (1989) (emphasis added).
IV.CONSIDERATION OF EVIDENCE PREVIOUSLY RULED INADMISSIBLE IN AN OREGON PROCEEDING
Part VII of the majority opinion asserts that none of the evidence suppressed in Oregon v. Paz, 31 Or.App. 851, 572 P.2d 1036 (1977), was included in the presentence report considered by the trial court in the instant case against Paz. Justice Johnson’s analysis of this issue points out both that evidence was included in the presentence report and that the trial court’s consideration of the evidence is apparent.
V.THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE TIME LIMITS IN I.C. § 19-2719
Concern that the 42-day limit of I.C. § 19-2719 would have a devastating affect upon the ability of attorneys to effectively raise and address all of the possible issues in capital cases was first raised in State v. Beam, 115 Idaho 208, 223, 766 P.2d 678, 693 (1988) (Bistline, J., dissenting). Given the current efforts to diminish the availability of federal habeas corpus relief, and recent United States Supreme Court decisions which foreclose argument on certain issues, see, e.g., Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), this concern is even more urgent. As the number of appeal opportunities available to persons sentenced to death diminishes it will be increasingly important there be made the best use of the remaining opportunities by finding all appealable issues at the outset and framing the arguments on those issues effectively. The 42-day limit of I.C. § 19-2719 does not afford defendants anywhere near adequate time to do so. The statute’s time limit is yet another enhancement of the risk that an arbitrary and capricious decision to impose the death penalty will be made and carried out. As such, the time limit violates the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution and art. I, §§ 6 and 13 of the Idaho Constitution.
VI.CONCLUSION
The Court had abdicated its duty in failing to controvert or even address the arguments outlined above, notwithstanding the clarity and unusual force with which the Public Defender presented them in his brief. Rehearing should be granted, thus giving the Court a chance to right itself.