Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner-appellant Shane Crawford petitioned for post-conviction relief after he was convicted for lewd conduct with a minor under the age of sixteen. Petitioner claimed he received ineffective assistance of counsel at both the trial and appellate stages. At the trial stage, Crawford claimed that his counsel was deficient in failing to request that the court either instruct the jury that manual-genital contact requires touching the vaginal area or define the term “genital.” Furthermore, he asserted that his trial counsel erred by failing to move for acquittal based upon insufficient evidence. On direct appeal of the conviction, Crawford’s counsel similarly did not raise a sufficiency of the evidence claim, which Crawford claimed constituted ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. The district court summarily dismissed Crawford’s petition, and he appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the summary dismissal. Crawford now seeks relief from this Court to have the summary dismissal of his claim reversed. Finding no reversible error in the summary dismissal of his claims, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Crawford v. Idaho" on Justia Law

Brant Lee Eversole was arrested for driving while under the influence and, after refusing to submit to a breath alcohol test, was taken to a hospital where his blood was drawn. Based on the results of the blood test, police charged Eversole with felony DUI and Eversole entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal two orders, one of which was an order denying a suppression motion. In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeals vacated the order denying the motion to suppress on the basis that Eversole revoked implied consent to the blood draw when he refused to submit to the earlier breath test. The State petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the suppression issue only. Eversole additionally requested that the Supreme Court review the Court of Appeals’ decision affirming the district court’s denial of Eversole’s motion to dismiss. After review, the Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s denial of Eversole’s motion to dismiss. However, the Court reversed the district court’s denial of Eversole’s motion to suppress and remanded to the district court for further proceedings. View "Idaho v. Eversole" on Justia Law

Appellant-State charged respondent Jamie Lynn Pachosa with felony possession of a controlled substance, possession of paraphernalia, and providing false information to a law enforcement officer. Before the trial, Pachosa moved to suppress all evidence against her, arguing that the officers in the case violated her Fourth Amendment rights by seizing her for an investigatory detention without the required reasonable suspicion. The district court granted Pachosa’s motion to suppress all evidence gathered against her. The State appealed that decision. After review, the Supreme Court concluded the district court erred in interpreting the controlling case law of this matter, and as such, erred in finding there was no reasonable suspicion to detain Pachosa. Therefore, the district court’s order granting Pachosa’s motion to suppress all evidence gathered against her was vacated and the case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Idaho v. Pachosa" on Justia Law

Defendant Darrien Dabney forcibly sodomized two six-year-old boys. At the time, Defendant was a developmentally disabled eighteen-year-old and had been living with the boys’ family less than a month. He had previously resided in foster care in Virginia. He appealed the sentence he received, the trial court’s order relinquishing jurisdiction after a period of retained jurisdiction because there was no community-based facility that could provide appropriate treatment for the defendant and security for the protection of the community; and the court’s order denying a motion to reduce the sentence. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Idaho v. Dabney" on Justia Law

In 2013, defendant Andrey Yermola texted his wife asking to meet her so they could talk. She responded that she was at work, but agreed to meet him at the hospital where she worked in Spokane, Washington, during her lunch break. A friend of his was sitting in the back seat. They drove to an apartment complex so the friend could recover his cell phone at someone’s apartment. After he left, Defendant told his wife that his cell phone battery was dead and asked to use hers. The friend returned to the car, and Defendant’s wife asked to be driven back to work. When they arrived at the hospital, Defendant stopped the car and began searching through the contacts on his wife’s phone. She asked for the phone, but Defendant would not give it to her. As they argued, Defendant’s friend got out of the car. Defendant then sped off, with his wife still in the car. He drove recklessly, at a high rate of speed, from the hospital to a casino in Idaho. After entering the casino parking lot, he turned around and drove out of the parking lot and stopped next to the road. Upon stopping, he retrieved a pistol, wiped it off with a sweater, exited the car, and tossed the pistol into the snow. He then drove back to the casino, parked the car, and, after making a loud scene, walked away, tossing his wife’s cell phone into a pond on his way to the casino. Defendant’s wife contacted a security guard, who contacted law enforcement. When the sheriff’s deputies arrived, she related what had happened. The deputies were able to recover the pistol, which had been stolen. Defendant was charged with false imprisonment, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, grand theft by possession of stolen property, willful concealment of evidence of a felony offense, and possession of drug paraphernalia (which items had been found during a search of his car). Defendant appealed his conviction of felony willful concealment of evidence. For that crime to have been a felony rather than a misdemeanor in this case, the object concealed must have been about to be produced, used, or discovered as evidence in an investigation that involved a felony criminal offense. Because the State did not offer any evidence that the criminal offense at issue was a felony, the Supreme Court vacated defendant’s felony conviction and remanded for entry of a conviction for misdemeanor willful concealment of evidence. View "Idaho v. Yermola" on Justia Law

Appellant Arthur Schmierer filed a motion under Idaho Criminal Rule 35 to correct an illegal sentence. In the underlying action, Schmierer had pled guilty to an amended superseding indictment that charged him with two counts of enticing children over the internet. Schmierer argued in his defense that the prosecutor improperly amended the indictment without resubmitting the matter to the grand jury, thereby depriving the district court of subject matter jurisdiction to convict him on the second enticement count. The district court denied Schmierer’s motion, concluding that Schmierer had waived any deficiencies in the charging document when he pled guilty. Schmierer appealed. The Idaho Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s order and vacated Schmierer’s conviction on the second enticement count. The Supreme Court granted the State’s petition for review, and affirmed the district court: “[w]here the charging document meets the substantive requirements for an information, but is labeled an indictment, we hold that it may be treated as an information. Here, the prosecutor could have charged Schmierer with enticement by either information or indictment. The labeling of the document as an indictment is a mere defect of form and does not deprive the court of jurisdiction over the charges unless it would tend to prejudice a substantial right of the defendant. Here, we find that Schmierer was not prejudiced by the mislabeling of the charging document and, therefore, we hold that the district court had jurisdiction to convict Schmierer of the second enticement count.” View "Idaho v. Schmierer" on Justia Law

Defendant Jason McClure was convicted of criminal contempt after he failed to make restitution payments required under his 1999 conviction for burglary. The contempt charge was based on a “Motion and Affidavit in Support of Contempt Proceedings” signed and sworn to before a deputy court clerk, rather than a notary public. McClure moved to dismiss the contempt charge against him, challenging the validity of the arrest warrant on various grounds. Each was rejected. Ultimately McClure conditionally pled guilty to the contempt allegation, preserving his right to challenge the denial of his motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeals vacated the district court’s judgment of criminal contempt, holding that the document did not impart subject matter jurisdiction over the contempt proceeding because it was not notarized. The State appealed. The Supreme Court reversed: "Here, the document at issue qualifies as an affidavit. A deputy clerk signed it in the presence of a second deputy clerk, whose signature indicated that the document was '[s]ubscribed and sworn to before' the clerk. Because deputy clerks of the court are authorized to administer oaths and affirmations, and because this construction of “affidavit” does no violence to the purpose or spirit of the applicable laws and rules, we hold that the 'Motion and Affidavit in Support of Contempt Proceedings' here was a valid and effective affidavit. As such, it imparted subject matter jurisdiction over McClure’s contempt charge." View "Idaho v. McClure" on Justia Law

Michelle McIntosh appealed her conviction and resulting sentence after she was found guilty of trafficking in methamphetamine, possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver, two counts of delivery of methamphetamine, and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. This case arose out of three separate purchases of methamphetamine by an undercover police officer from McIntosh. The jury found McIntosh guilty of all charges, and the court subsequently sentenced McIntosh to a total unified term of ten years, with four years fixed. McIntosh timely appealed. McIntosh made two arguments on appeal: (1) her conviction for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver should have been vacated because the district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction over the charge; and (2) the district court abused its discretion when it imposed a unified term of ten years, with four years fixed. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed McIntosh's conviction and sentence. View "Idaho v. McIntosh" on Justia Law

The State appealed following the conviction of defendant Benito Razo-Chavez for one count of possession of oxycodone. The State did not not challenge the outcome of the case and did not seek to overturn the verdict or sentence; rather, the State challenged the propriety of the district court’s jury instruction regarding the elements of possession of a controlled substance under Idaho Code section 37-2732(c). Specifically, the instructions given to the jury by the district court stated the mens rea element of possession of a controlled substance as “the defendant either knew it was oxycodone or believed it was oxycodone.” The State argued that this instruction was improper and should have stated the mens rea element as “the defendant either knew it was oxycodone or believed it was a controlled substance.” The Supreme Court dismissed this appeal: if the district court committed error, the Court held such error was harmless. View "Idaho v. Razo-Chavez" on Justia Law

Larry Severson was convicted in 2004 of one count of first-degree murder and one count of poisoning food or medicine. Those convictions were upheld by the Idaho Supreme Court on direct appeal. In this post-conviction proceeding, Severson appealed the district court’s summary dismissal on res judicata grounds of his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to object to allegedly improper statements made by the prosecutor in closing argument. The appeal was heard by the Idaho Court of Appeals, which reversed the holding that res judicata applied. The State petitioned for review, arguing that the summary dismissal should have been affirmed because Severson failed to establish a prima facie case of ineffective assistance. The State argued at the district court that Severson failed to meet his burden of proof, but the court did not consider whether Severson adequately raised a genuine issue of material fact. Although the Supreme Court could have taken it upon itself to decide that matter on the record presented, it concluded the better course of action was to remand for the district court to consider this question. "This approach also gives the district court the opportunity to address any claims Severson may present regarding appellate counsel’s failure to raise on direct appeal those statements which the dissent noted but which the majority did not address." The Supreme Court vacated the district court’s summary dismissal of Severson’s claims for ineffective assistance of counsel and remanded for further proceedings. View "Severson v. Idaho" on Justia Law