State v. Fuchs, 12582
| Decision Date | 05 July 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 12582,12582 |
| Citation | 597 P.2d 227,100 Idaho 341 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Ila Grace FUCHS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Bert L. Osborn, of Welch & Osborn, Payette, for defendant-appellant.
Wayne L. Kidwell, Atty. Gen., John Sutton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boise, for plaintiff-respondent.
The defendant-appellant in this case was found guilty of having committed the crime of second degree murder after a plea of guilty. She was subsequently sentenced under the indeterminate sentence law of the State of Idaho for a term not to exceed eighteen years. The facts appear from the record and the presentence investigation report. The victim of the homicide in question was Donald Fuchs, the husband of the appellant. The victim and the appellant met in September of 1974, and after a brief courtship, were married in December of 1974. Donald and Ila lived in Garden Valley, Idaho, and in a logging camp at Deadwood for about two months. Donald followed the logging industry. It appears that the marriage was a troubled relationship. According to the appellant, the victim was easily angered and would frequently beat the "daylights" out of her. Donald owned three guns, one of which was a pistol, a .44 Ruger Super Blackhawk magnum revolver, which was the weapon involved in the incident in question.
On Friday before the day of the homicide on October 16, 1976, Donald had to take a truck from Garden Valley, Idaho, to Council, Idaho, for repair. The appellant accompanied him in their 1963 Oldsmobile station wagon. Donald's parents lived at Midvale, Idaho. They stayed at Midvale Friday night with Donald's parents and then on Saturday, took the truck to Council and then came back to Midvale. It was then that Donald and his brother Calvin decided to attend a party that Saturday night in Council where a western music rock festival was going on. The appellant did not really want to go; but she finally decided to go along. The group consisted of Donald, and Ila, the appellant, and Calvin and his wife Nita, and Nita's sister, Judy. Ila took her little puppy along. They arrived at Council around 6:00 p. m., drove by a house that Donald was buying and then went to a restaurant, the Lumberjack, for dinner. They finished dinner around 7:30 or 8:00 p. m., and then they went to the lounge in the Council Hotel where most of the crowd attending the western music rock festival were concentrated. At that point according to Ila in her testimony at the time of sentencing, Donald began to make it clear to her that he did not want her around. He told Ila to take off her rings because he wanted to be with Judy that night. Ila said in testimony that she was relegated to another group of people back by the bar while Donald, Judy, Calvin and Nita stayed up near the band. At one time, Donald apparently came to Ila and told her to quit acting like a fool and to come sit with them. Ila replied that if he wanted to be with Judy to go ahead and be with her that she could have fun by herself. So Ila sat in her group by the bar and consumed perhaps four or more drinks of blackberry brandy and coke. A blood alcohol test made about one hour after the homicide revealed that the defendant had a .10 percent of alcohol in her blood. Defense counsel at the time of sentencing also stated that it appeared from the transcript of the preliminary hearing that the defendant had taken a tranquilizer, Librium, four or five hours prior to the homicide. As Ila sat there drinking and talking with her friends, she began to become angry at both Donald and Judy.
At one point, Judy came over, grabbed Ila and physically jerked her outside. In the ensuing struggle, Ila fell and struck her head. She was picked up and placed across the trunk of a car and later, a police patrol car came up and officers took Ila to the police station. She was there perhaps a half hour drinking a coke and composing herself. Then the police let Ila leave. She went back to the lounge to obtain her purse from the table. Then she went to their car to let her puppy out. Ila claimed Donald would not let her have the keys so after several other attempts at entry, she finally broke a window wing with a rock and entered the car. She was seen attempting entry by the police who did nothing, knowing it was her car. At that time, she also removed the .44 magnum from the car. Ila then went to the Council Cafe with her puppy, and there saw one of the women with whom she had been sitting in the lounge. Ila asked her friend to hold the puppy and then said something to the effect that "he is just not worth it." Then Ila left the cafe and went into the lounge. She returned some ten or fifteen minutes later upset and crying and disheveled, her glasses broken. Ila came to her friend, dropped down upon her knees, put her head in the lap of her girl friend and said "I shot him" and "I killed him." Subsequently, Ila left with her friends for the sheriff's office to turn herself in.
During the questioning of Ila at the time of her guilty plea and hearing in mitigation of punishment, it appeared that she could give no details of the actual shooting. However, the presentence investigation report reveals that the shooting occurred in the Council Lounge in the Council Hotel which is located on Main Street in Council, Idaho. The record of postmortem examination disclosed that the deceased was shot in the left back below the shoulder. The bullet passed through the left scapula then through the fourth and fifth ribs which were explosively shattered, then through the left upper lobe, then completely disrupted and separated the aorta. The bullet lodged near the deceased's right shoulder. It appears that Ila had fired only one shot. It is clear from the record that at the time of the shooting, which was around 11:30 p. m., the Council Lounge was crowded with revelers in attendance for the evening's festivities.
The investigation and the events following the incident resulted in a charge or murder in the first degree being lodged against the appellant. At arraignment, she filed notice of intent to rely on the defense of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and a psychiatric examination was ordered by the court. However, this examination never took place. According to her defense counsel's statement in open court on January 31, 1977, Ila had decided she did not want to be involved in any psychiatric procedure. On that date, as a result of a plea bargain, the state filed an amended information charging murder in the second degree. The insanity plea was withdrawn and the defendant entered a plea of guilty to the charge of murder in the second degree which the court accepted.
The court ordered a presentence investigation; and on March 5, 1977, held a lengthy hearing in mitigation and aggravation before passing sentence. It appears from the transcript of this hearing and the presentence investigation report that, at the time of sentencing, Ila was a young woman of about 24 years of age who had lived a hard life. At one time a few years prior to the incident, she testified she had been involved with drugs "marijuana, speed, uppers, downers and finally acid." Ila's mother testified that as Ila entered high school, her father had a heart attack and her mother had to work. Ila at that time started skipping school. While in the eleventh grade, she ran away from home twice. She ultimately quit school that year after she had been a runaway for two weeks. Later in August, 1970, Ila married one Wayne Reed. They remained married about two and one half years, and then were divorced. During that marriage Ila was the victim of physical assaults from time to time. Ila apparently had one child, and then Reed disappeared when Ila became pregnant with the second child. After that, Ila lived with one Jim Turnbull for about a year, but they were never married. He apparently helped Ila get off drugs. After that, she lived with another man in Emmett for about three months. Ila's ex-in-laws during these times were giving her problems about the custody of her children so she arranged to have her own parents adopt her children. Then she married Donald in December 1974.
The evidence at the mitigation hearing also indicated one or two attempts by Ila at suicide in 1975 after she was married to Donald.
In the light of these facts, Judge Norris sentenced Ila to eighteen years, considering that she would be eligible for parole in six years. The prosecution had urged a sentence of thirty years. The defense had urged the minimum sentence of ten years.
On this appeal, the appellant has alleged two assignments of error: that the trial court abused its discretion by sentencing the defendant to an indeterminate period of time not to exceed eighteen years; and that the trial court erred by not requiring a mental evaluation to insure that the defendant was mentally competent to waive her constitutional rights at the time she entered her plea of guilty to the charge of second degree murder.
On the contention that the trial judge abused its discretion by sentencing the defendant to an indeterminate period of time not to exceed eighteen years, the defendant argues that the Supreme Court has the power to reduce excessive sentences where it appears that the trial court has clearly abused its discretion. Counsel for the defendant cites State v. McClellan, 96 Idaho 569, 532 P.2d 574 (1975), for the proposition that evidence of no prior felony convictions on the part of the defendant militates against a long sentence for second degree murder. Therefore, the defense argues that the trial court abused its discretion by not imposing the minimum sentence, 10 years, because the defendant had never been convicted of a felony and the deceased had beaten defendant in the past and shunned her for other women.
The respondent argues that the defendant's sentence is well within the statutory limits set out by...
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