State v. Coassolo

• Decision Date: 27 July 2001
• Docket Number: No. 26948.,26948.
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John D. COASSOLO, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

30 P.3d 293

136 Idaho 138

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John D. COASSOLO, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 26948.

Supreme Court of Idaho. Moscow, April 2001 Term.

July 27, 2001.

Ronaldo A. Coulter, State Appellate Public Defender, Boise; University of Idaho Legal Aid Clinic, Maureen E. Laflin, Supervising Attorney, Moscow, for appellant. Marc D. Brown argued.

Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General, Boise; Rebekah A. Cude, Special Deputy Attorney General, Moscow, for respondent. Rebekah A. Cude argued.

TROUT, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from the district judge's Order Relinquishing Jurisdiction and Order Denying Motion For Reconsideration of Sentence.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

John Daniel Coassolo ("Coassolo") was charged with aiding and abetting the delivery of methamphetamine. Pursuant to a plea agreement, Coassolo pleaded guilty to the charge in exchange for the state's dismissal of an unrelated case in which Coassolo was charged with possession of methamphetamine. After considering a presentence investigation report (PSI) and other evidence presented at the sentencing hearing, the district judge sentenced Coassolo to a unified term of imprisonment of eight years with four years determinate. Pursuant to I.C. § 19-2601(4), the district judge suspended execution of the sentence, retained jurisdiction for 120 days, placed Coassolo in the "rider program" at the North Idaho Correctional Institution ("NICI"), and ordered him to return to the court for review of the sentence upon completion of the program. Near the end of the 120-day period, the NICI submitted an addendum to the PSI recommending the judge relinquish jurisdiction. Coassolo declined an opportunity to submit comments to the report for the district judge's consideration. Upon considering the amended PSI the district judge relinquished jurisdiction. Neither the NICI nor the district judge provided Coassolo with a hearing at which to contest the content of the addendum to the PSI.

Thereafter, Coassolo filed a Motion for Reconsideration of Sentence pursuant to Idaho Criminal Rule ("I.C.R.") 35. The district judge denied the motion.

Coassolo appealed the Order Relinquishing Jurisdiction and the denial of his motion for a more lenient sentence, which appeal was assigned to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals held that the 1995 amendment to I.C. § 19-2601(4), which eliminated hearings at the NICI on the accuracy of amendments to the PSI, was unconstitutional because it attempted to eliminate the due process required to protect Coassolo's liberty interest in the accuracy of the NICI's report. Since Coassolo had been denied due process of law, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the Order Relinquishing Jurisdiction.

The state filed a timely Petition for Review with this Court, which petition was granted.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

When considering a case on review from the Court of Appeals, this Court gives serious consideration of the views of the Court of Appeals; however, this Court reviews the trial court's decisions directly. State v. Benefiel, 131 Idaho 226, 228, 953 P.2d 976, 978 (1998) (citing State v. Avelar, 129 Idaho 700, 702, 931 P.2d 1218, 1220 (1997)).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Coassolo Does Not Possess A Constitutionally Protected Liberty Interest That Would Require A Hearing Before The District Judge Relinquishes Jurisdiction.

Constitutional issues and the construction and application of legislative acts are pure questions of law over which this Court exercises free review. Struhs v. Prot. Tech., Inc., 133 Idaho 715, 718, 992 P.2d 164, 167 (1999).

Idaho's retained jurisdiction statute provides:

Whenever any person shall have been convicted, or enter a plea of guilty, in any district court of the state of Idaho, of or to any crime against the laws of the state, except those of treason or murder, the court in its discretion may:

....

4. Suspend the execution of judgment at any time during the first one hundred eighty (180) days of a sentence to the custody of the state board of correction. The court shall retain jurisdiction over the prisoner for the first one hundred eighty (180) days .... The prisoner will remain committed to the board of correction if not affirmatively placed on probation by the court. Placement on probation shall be under such terms and conditions as the court deems necessary and expedient. The court in its discretion may sentence a defendant to more than one (1) period of retained jurisdiction after a defendant has been placed on probation in a case. In no case shall the board of correction or its agent, the department of correction, be required to hold a hearing of any kind with respect to a recommendation to the court for the grant or denial of probation. Probation is a matter left to the sound discretion of the court. Any recommendation made by the department to the court regarding the prisoner shall be in the nature of an addendum to the presentence report....

I.C. § 19-2601 (Supp.2000) (emphasis added).

Prior to the 1995 amendment to the statute, which added the language emphasized above, hearings on the accuracy of evaluations were held by the NICI before the submission of recommendations to the district judge. The hearings were conducted pursuant to this Court's decision in State v. Wolfe, 99 Idaho 382, 582 P.2d 728 (1978), which required that:

The prisoner must be given adequate notice before the hearing, including notice of the substance of all matters that will be considered. The prisoner must be given an opportunity to explain or rebut any testimony or recommendations. In addition, the prisoner must be free to call witnesses in his behalf from among the employees and other prisoners at NICI. This information should be included in the report sent back to the sentencing judge.

Id. at 389, 582 P.2d at 735. The Court imposed these requirements based upon its holding "that a prisoner, as well as the state, does have a substantial interest in the fairness of the due process used to determine his status." 99 Idaho at 387, 582 P.2d at 733. Subsequent decisions of this Court, without questioning the basis for the interest, have clarified that the term "substantial interest" refers to a constitutionally protected liberty interest. See e.g., Smith v. Idaho Dep't of Corr., 128 Idaho 768, 771, 918 P.2d 1213, 1216 (1996)

; State v. Chapman, 111 Idaho 149, 151, 721 P.2d 1248, 1250 (1986); State v. White, 107 Idaho 941, 942, 694 P.2d 890, 891 (1985); State v. Machen, 100 Idaho 167, 169, 595 P.2d 316, 318 (1979) (determining whether Wolfe should be applied retroactively by applying "three criteria for determining whether a judicial decision affecting constitutional rights should be applied retrospectively or prospectively" (emphasis added)).

One year after this Court decided Wolfe, the United States Supreme Court decided Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Neb. Penal and Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979). In Greenholtz, a group of inmates brought a civil rights action against the Nebraska State Board of Parole claiming that the Board's actions in considering the suitability of inmates for parole violated due process. The inmates reasoned, much as this Court and several federal circuit courts had, see Wolfe, 99 Idaho 382,

582 P.2d 728 (citing e.g., Childs v. United States Bd. of Parole, 511 F.2d 1270 (D.C.Cir.1974); United States ex rel. Johnson v. Chairman, N.Y. State Bd. of Parole, 500 F.2d 925 (2d Cir.1974)), that the United States Supreme Court's decision in Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972), which found that parolees have a protectible liberty interest that cannot be taken away without due process of law, meant that the prisoners also had a protectible interest in the possibility of parole. The inmates in Greenholtz stated the argument as: "the ultimate interest at stake both in a parole-revocation decision and in a parole determination is conditional liberty and that since the underlying interest is the same the two situations should be accorded the same constitutional protection." 442 U.S. at 9,

99 S.Ct. at 2105. In Wolfe this Court used the word "substantial" rather than "ultimate" and characterized the interest as being in "status" rather than "conditional liberty", but the theory is the same. The United States Supreme Court rejected the argument.

The fallacy in respondents' position is that parole release and parole revocation are quite different. There is a crucial distinction between being deprived of a liberty one has, as in parole, and being denied a conditional liberty that one desires. The parolees in Morrissey (and probationers in Gagnon) were at liberty and as such could "be gainfully employed and [were] free to be with family and friends and to form the other enduring attachments of normal life." The inmates here, on the other hand, are confined and thus subject to all of the necessary restraints that inhere in a prison.

Id. at 9, 99 S.Ct. at 2105 (citation omitted).

In addition to federal case law, the Court in Wolfe relied upon Idaho case law discussing "probation application" hearings. In reality, there are no probation application hearings in Idaho. The term probation application hearing merely refers to the trial court's consideration of a clemency request at the time of sentencing. If the trial court fails to consider the application at sentencing, the remedy is to vacate the sentence and remand for a reconsideration of the sentence. See, e.g., State v. Freeman, 85 Idaho 339, 379 P.2d 632 (1963)

. The cases discussing probation application hearings relate to liberty interests at sentencing, not at the expiration of retained jurisdiction. "[I]n Idaho, sentence is imposed initially and not when the retained jurisdiction expires." Wolfe, 99 Idaho at 389 n. 2,

582 P.2d at 735 n. 2.

Since the reasoning and case law used by this Court in Wolfe is inapplicable or overruled, see, e.g., Brandon v. D.C. Bd. of...