Dyer v. State
| Decision Date | 02 March 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 16948,16948 |
| Citation | 115 Idaho 773,769 P.2d 1145 |
| Parties | Bruce Allen DYER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. STATE of Idaho, Respondent. |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
Jonne' E. Kohler, Nampa, for petitioner-appellant.
Jim Jones, Atty. Gen. by Peter C. Erbland, Deputy Atty. Gen., Boise, for respondent.
In State v. Wolfe, 99 Idaho 382, 582 P.2d 728 (1978), our Supreme Court established minimum procedural due process requirements for prisoner evaluations under the retained jurisdiction program at the North Idaho Correctional Institute (NICI). Today we must decide whether those requirements were satisfied in the present case and whether an order relinquishing jurisdiction should be set aside. These questions are framed by the district court's summary dismissal of an application for post-conviction relief. For reasons explained below, we affirm the order.
The facts essential to our opinion are undisputed. Upon pleas of guilty, Bruce Allen Dyer was convicted on two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a twelve-year-old-boy. The district court pronounced concurrent, indeterminate sentences of twenty years, but suspended each sentence and placed Dyer on probation. The court later received a probation officer's report stating that Dyer had failed to complete a rehabilitation program and had made an inappropriate contact with another minor. The court revoked Dyer's probation and ordered the twenty-year sentences into execution. However, the court retained jurisdiction for 120 days under I.C. § 19-2601(4), expressing a desire that Dyer be placed in the sexual offender program at the NICI. As the 120-day period drew to a close, the evaluation committee at NICI recommended--and the district court granted--a sixty-day extension in the retained jurisdiction. During the additional sixty days, the committee held a meeting which, so far as the record shows, complied with the due process requirements articulated in State v. Wolfe, supra. After the meeting, the committee sent the district judge a report finding Dyer to be "a relatively high risk to re-offend." Nevertheless, the committee recommended probation under numerous conditions, including participation in mental health, substance abuse and vocational rehabilitation programs.
Before the district court could act upon this recommendation, the NICI committee held another meeting. On this occasion, according to allegations made in the application for post-conviction relief, the meeting was convened on less than twenty-four hours' notice to Dyer. The committee then considered information recently received from a confidential source. The informant apparently had told the committee that Dyer possessed photographs of the victim of the original lewd and lascivious conduct, and that Dyer had expressed an intention to see the boy again as soon as possible. As further alleged in the application for post-conviction relief, Dyer was not allowed to confront the confidential informant nor to present testimony from NICI staff members regarding the unreliability of an individual surmised to be the informant. After this second meeting, the committee amended its report to the district court. This time the committee recommended that the court not grant probation and that it relinquish jurisdiction. The court thereafter did so, without conducting any further hearing of its own.
Dyer subsequently filed the application for post-conviction relief, asserting that the order relinquishing jurisdiction was tainted by constitutional error because it was based upon proceedings at NICI which did not comport with the minimum procedural due process requirements enunciated in Wolfe. Deeming the material facts to be uncontroverted, the district court summarily dismissed the application under I.C. § 19-4906. The judge made no determination as to whether due process requirements had been satisfied. The judge simply noted that his earlier decision to relinquish jurisdiction had not turned on the information considered by the NICI committee at its second meeting. Rather, the judge said, his decision was based upon "consideration of not only the two reports received from the staff at NICI, but the entire record in this matter, including the facts and circumstances surrounding the court's revocation of [Dyer's] first probation in this case." This appeal followed.
An order summarily dismissing an application for post-conviction relief is functionally equivalent to a summary judgment in a civil case under I.R.C.P. 56. E.g., Ramirez v. State, 113 Idaho 87, 741 P.2d 374 (Ct.App.1987). Accordingly, for the purpose of appellate review, the allegations in the post-conviction relief application are deemed to be true; however, summary dismissal of the application will be upheld if the allegations would not entitle the applicant to relief as a matter of law. E.g., Williams v. State, 113 Idaho 685, 747 P.2d 94 (Ct.App.1987). Thus, the question presented in this case is twofold: (a) whether the alleged facts show a deprivation of due process in the NICI proceedings and, if so, (b) whether such a constitutional violation entitles Dyer to any relief in view of the district judge's...
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