State v. Akins
Decision Date | 06 August 2018 |
Docket Number | Docket No. 45347 |
Citation | 423 P.3d 1026,164 Idaho 74 |
Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Laura Louise AKINS, Defendant–Respondent. |
Honorable Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for appellant. Kenneth K. Jorgensen argued.
Eric D. Fredericksen, State Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for respondent. Jenny C. Swinford argued.
The State appeals from the dismissal of a charge against the defendant for her failure to notify of a death pursuant to Idaho Code section 19-4301A. The statute imposes a duty on persons who find or have custody of a body to promptly notify authorities. It also prescribes the punishment for failure to comply with that duty, including felony punishment for failing to notify with intent to prevent discovery of the manner of death. The question presented on appeal is whether the defendant’s prosecution under this statute would violate her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. We hold that it would based on the unique set of facts of this case and affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss the charge.
In November 2015, Kimberly Vezina’s body was found wrapped in a tarp and a shower curtain in Lake Coeur d’Alene. Law enforcement’s investigation revealed that Laura Akins was suspected of disposing the body after Vezina died of a drug overdose. The investigation established that on the morning of October 15, 2015, Vezina was found deceased in a bathroom of a house in Spokane Valley, Washington. At the time, Akins was living in the house with a collection of other occupants. The residence had been raided earlier that month and was known by local law enforcement as a place where significant drug use and distribution occurred. During the course of the investigation, multiple persons relayed suspicion that Vezina was the victim of an intentional overdose caused or ordered by a former resident.
Following the discovery of Vezina’s death, one of the other residents directed Akins and another person who had been at the house, Lacy Drake, to dispose of the body at a lake house owned by Akins’s relatives in Coeur d’Alene. This decision reflected that Akins and Drake had less extensive criminal records than the other occupants of the house. That evening, Akins and Drake were provided with a "burner" SUV in which the wrapped body had been placed in the rear cargo area. After briefly stopping at the lake house, Akins and Drake drove to a nearby public boat launch, unloaded the body, carried it to the dock, and dumped it into the water with an attached bag of cement. Three weeks later, the body was discovered by two fishermen who initially noticed the tarp on the surface of the lake and thereafter notified authorities. A subsequent coroner’s examination confirmed that Vezina had died of combined drug toxicity.
Akins moved to dismiss this count, contending that her prosecution under section 19-4301A violated her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Following a hearing on the motion, the district court issued a memorandum decision dismissing the count. The district court later entered a written order, from which the State now appeals.
"This Court applies an abuse of discretion standard when it reviews a trial court’s decision on a motion to dismiss." State v. Eversole , 160 Idaho 239, 244, 371 P.3d 293, 298 (2016) (citing State v. Card , 137 Idaho 182, 184, 45 P.3d 838, 840 (2002) ). To determine if a trial court abused its discretion, this Court considers whether the trial court perceived the issue as one of discretion, acted within the outer boundaries of that discretion, acted consistently with the applicable legal standards, and reached its decision by an exercise of reason. Id. (citing State v. Joy , 155 Idaho 1, 6, 304 P.3d 276, 281 (2013) ). Akins’s motion raised a constitutional challenge. "Constitutional issues are purely questions of law over which this Court exercises free review." State v. Baeza , 161 Idaho 38, 40, 383 P.3d 1208, 1210 (2016) (quoting Morgan v. New Sweden Irrigation Dist. , 160 Idaho 47, 51, 368 P.3d 990, 994 (2016) ).
This appeal presents a question of first impression for this Court. The issue underlying Akins’s motion was whether enforcement of section 19-4301A against her would be constitutionally permissible in light of her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that "[n]o person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U.S. Const. amend. V. The privilege against compulsory self-incrimination has been incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Malloy v. Hogan , 378 U.S. 1, 6, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964) ; see also Idaho Const. art. I, § 13. In its application, the privilege "protects against any disclosures which the witness reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used." Kastigar v. United States , 406 U.S. 441, 445, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972) (citing Hoffman v. United States , 341 U.S. 479, 71 S.Ct. 814, 95 L.Ed. 1118 (1951) ; Blau v. United States , 340 U.S. 159, 71 S.Ct. 223, 95 L.Ed. 170 (1950) ; Mason v. United States , 244 U.S. 362, 37 S.Ct. 621, 61 L.Ed. 1198 (1917) ). "This provision of the Amendment must be accorded liberal construction in favor of the right it was intended to secure." Hoffman , 341 U.S. at 486, 71 S.Ct. 814.
Section 19-4301A is found amongst the criminal procedure statutes regarding coroner inquests. See I.C. §§ 19-4301 to 19-4310. The statute imposes a duty on persons who find or have custody of a body to promptly notify the coroner or appropriate law enforcement personnel and prescribes punishment for failures to comply with that duty:
The duty to notify set forth in the first sentence of subsection (1)—i.e., the "reporting requirement"—is triggered when there is a death that is subject to a coroner’s investigation under Idaho Code section 19-4301(1). A county coroner must investigate a death if:
I.C. § 19-4301(1). The remaining two subsections of section 19-4301A set forth misdemeanor and felony penalties for a failure to report. Misdemeanors are imposed for any failure except those occurring "with the intent to prevent discovery of the manner of death," which are subject to felony punishment. I.C. § 19-4301A(2) – (3).
Akins was charged with a felony under subsection (3). Based on the statute’s language, for the State to enforce subsection (3), it was required to establish that Akins had an obligation to report under subsection (1). In her motion, Akins argued that her compliance with any obligation imposed by the statute would have forced her to provide potentially self-incriminating information. The district court agreed, finding that the State’s charge would effectively punish Akins for her failure to incriminate herself, and that therefore her claim of privilege provided a full defense from prosecution. The State argues that this decision was incorrect for two reasons: (1) section 19-4301A did not require Akins to provide testimonial evidence, and (2) Akins’s duty to comply with the statute’s reporting requirement did not create a hazard of self-incrimination.
The State’s first argument raises a significant threshold question because the statute must require compelled testimony for Akins’s claim to have merit. The Fifth...
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State v. Gibbs
...argues, Iowa Code section 704.2B is constitutionally infirm.Gibbs urges us to follow the Idaho Supreme Court’s lead in State v. Akins , 164 Idaho 74, 423 P.3d 1026 (2018). In Akins , an Idaho statute made it a crime for a person who finds or has custody of a body to fail to promptly notify ......