State v. Edelblute
| Decision Date | 03 March 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 9727,9727 |
| Citation | 91 Idaho 469,424 P.2d 739 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Walter J. EDELBLUTE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Rapaich & Knutson, Lewiston, for appellant.
Allan G. Shepard, Atty. Gen., and Thomas C. Frost, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boise, for respondent.
On May 15, 1963, Walter J. Edelblute, appellant, entered a plea of guilty in the District Court of Nez Perce County to the felony offense of grand larceny, I.C. §§ 18-4606 and 18-4604. Appellant, then nineteen years old, stood charged with six other young men for the theft of forty cases of beer, worth two hundred dollars. After a persentence investigation report by Ernest M. Callahan, district agent for parole and probation of the Idaho Board of Correction, on June 17, 1963, the trial judge, the Honorable John W. Cramer, ordered judgment suspended and appellant put on probation for a period of three years. The order placed appellant:
'under the legal custody and control of the Director or Probation and Parole of the State of Idaho, and the District Court, and subject to the rules and regulations of probation as prescribed by the Board of Correction and the District Court.'
The State Board of Correction, by district agent Callahan, and appellant entered into an 'Agreement of Probation' which provided that:
'(1) (T)he court may at any time, in case of violation of the terms of probation, cause the probationer to be returned to the Court and his probation be revoked and sentence pronounced.
'(2) The probationer shall be under the legal custody and control of the Court of the Tenth Judicial District, and the Director of Probation and Parole for the State of Idaho.'
This agreement recited that, by his signature, appellant did 'fully understand and accetp all the conditions, regulations and restrictions as made by the State Board of Correction and those imposed by the Court.' Besides certain specific restrictions on appellant's permitted conduct, the agreement provided:
'That the probationer shall avoid evil associates and not frequent improper places of amusement, nor loiter upon the streets at night, and shall respect and obey the laws of the United States, State, County, and City, and at all times conduct himself as a good citizen.'
On October 27, 1964, Roy E. Mosman, prosecuting attorney of Nez Perce County, petitioned Judge Cramer for a bench warrant, which was issued the next day, ordering appellant to appear before the court to show cause why probation should not be revoked and sentence imposed. The petition, incorporated in the warrant's issuance order, alleged that appellant:
'ha(d) failed to maintain a proper attitude toward an effective probation and further, that he has attempted to have improper relations with a teen-age girl, who is not the wife of the said defendant, and when his attentions were resisted, he struck said teenage girl.'
On December 10, 1964, appellant's attorney filed a motion to quash the warrant on grounds of legal insufficiency for failure to state facts sufficient either to apprise appellant of the charged violation of his probation or to inform the court of probable cause for appellant's arrest.
On December 15, 1964, Judge Cramer denied the motion to quash and held a hearing in which it was disclosed that a report from probation officer Callahan was the basis for the revocation proceeding. The transcript of this hearing indicates that neither appellant nor his attorney was allowed to see this report, although the attorney asked the court for permission to examine it. Appellant's attorney told the court:
Appellant's attorney then renewed his motion to dismiss the bench warrant, which was again denied.
Appellant then called as a witness officer Callahan, who testified that his report, an unsworn statement, contained two allegations of violations of appellant's probation:
'I specifically mentioned the conduct regarding one girl (the only specific charge of violation) and then generally the ill conduct that he had,' which, Callahan admitted on questioning by appellant's attorney, was 'something to this effect then, that he failed * * * to maintain a proper attitude toward an effective probation.'
In answer to questions by appellant's attorney, officer Callahan said that the girl with whom appellant had 'attempted to have improper relations' lived in Clarkston, Washington, and that the conduct which instigated the report occurred there, and conceded that he, officer Callahan, had accepted the story of the girl, fifteen or sixteen years old at the time, after one personal and one telephone conversation (The report itself, Exhibit 'B,' only refers to a 'call'), and had never conferred with her in the presence of her parents nor caused an independent investigation to be made of the charges (To the question 'you don't know whether this girl's report is true or false based on any independent investigation on your part?' he replied, 'I have no way of knowing.'). Officer Callahan further admitted: that after appellant's attorney had interviewed the girl he told him, Callahan, that her story to him was at odds with her statements to the attorney, and that she was motivated by unrequited love since she had openly stated she 'was going to send Walter up' because he had decided to marry some other girl, but Callahan never discussed with the girl or otherwise investigated appellant's attorney's statements though appellant's attorney offered documents as the basis for such an investigation; that the Friday before the hearing, the girl's parents had an appointment in the Lewiston, Idaho, office of appellant's attorney and he previously had invited Callahan to be present and talk with them, but Callahan did not attend; and that he had never discussed the 'improper relations' incident with appellant. Officer Callahan further testified that, while he had generally discussed appellant's conduct with one school teacher, he had not discussed the boy's recent behavior with any of his employers (appellant had held a few jobs since his probation began, and one employer testified that his work and attitude were excellent), had only vague knowledge of appellant's employments, and did not know his income nor how much indebtedness he had paid since his probation had begun.
After officer Callahan left the witness stand, based on his testimony, appellant's attorney again renewed the motion to quash the bench warrant on grounds that there still had been no proof of any specific violation of appellant's probation. The motion was denied.
Judge Cramer took the case under advisement and, on January 6, 1965, ordered that appellant be continued on his original probation with two added conditions: first, that appellant not associate with any members of the family of the girl with whom he allegedly had attempted improper relations; second, that he was 'not to be in the City of Lewiston at night for any reason at any time within six (6) months.' Due to this continuation order, the conduct of the December 15, 1964, hearing is not itself in issue on this appeal. The facts have been noted merely as informative background.
On June 8, 1965, nine days before the end of the second full year of appellant's three year probation, the chain of legal proceedings began which led to this appeal. On that day, prosecuting attorney Mosman petitioned for a bench warrant for appellant's arrest, alleging that he had violated terms of his probation:
'in that; (1) He has visited and been in the City of Lewiston at night on many different occasions since the entry of the order withholding judgment and continuing probation, although six months from the date of that order has not expired,'
and '(2) * * * he has been convicted of the offenense of reckless driving in the City of Lewiston, County of Nez Perce, State of Idaho.'
On Judge Cramer's order, a bench warrant incorporating the petition issued on June 9, 1965, to have appellant brought before the court to show cause why his continued probation should not have been revoked.
On June 18, 1965, appellant's attorney filed a motion to quash the warrant for legal insufficiency on grounds that it did not state evidentiary facts sufficient to apprisc appellant of the specific offense charged nor to comprise a violation of the conditions of probation and for that reason was issued without probable cause. Appellant further moved to set aside the warrant on grounds: first, that he had never been inside Lewiston at night without 'permission and/or knowledge of his probation officer,' and had permission from him to stay at his mother's Lewiston home during seasonal unemployment from his logging occupation; second, that charged with reckless driving at 8:55 p. m. on April 23, 1965, appellant reported the charge to his probation officer the next day, and on April 30, 1965, by his attorney, filed a demurrer to the traffic citation; that on May 5, 1965, his attorney appeared in police court at Lewiston to argue the demurrer which was overruled and a trial held although appellant's attorney objected that appellant could not appear since he was participating in a log drive in Clearwater County, Idaho; that the police court trial was held despite the request of appellant's attorney for a continuance so that appellant could appear to testify and call witnesses in his own behalf; that because of this appellant had not in fact been afforded a trial on the reckless driving charge, and that from his conviction in police court an...
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State v. Wolfe
...Id. at 17, 454 P.2d at 54. In an extensive dissertation on the importance of probation revocation hearings, State v. Edelblute, 91 Idaho 469, 424 P.2d 739 (1967) sheds light on the issue of fairness and the need for all the This statutory policy demanding equitable judicial administration o......
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State v. Rose
...criminal defendants. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 480, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2599, 33 L.Ed.2d 484, 493 (1972); State v. Edelblute, 91 Idaho 469, 475, 424 P.2d 739, 745 (1967); see also Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 782, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 1759, 36 L.Ed.2d 656, 661 (1973) (applying Morrissey......
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...supra note 1 at 118.8 State v. Kauffman, supra note 5, at 22; State v. Moore, 93 Idaho 14, 16, 454 P.2d 51 (1969).9 State v. Edelblute, 91 Idaho 469, 477, 424 P.2d 739 (1967); State v. Grady, 89 Idaho 204, 213, 404 P.2d 347 (1965); State v. Freeman, 85 Idaho 339, 349, 379 P.2d 632 (1963); S......
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