State v. Loomis

• Decision Date: 22 January 2009
• Docket Number: No. 35368.,35368.
• Citation: 146 Idaho 700,201 P.3d 1277
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Myron Dale LOOMIS, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

201 P.3d 1277

146 Idaho 700

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Myron Dale LOOMIS, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 35368.

Supreme Court of Idaho, Boise, December 2008 Term.

January 22, 2009.

Hallin Law, PLLC, McCall, for appellant. Jonathon D. Hallin argued.

Honorable Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Rebekah A. Cudé argued.

J. JONES, Justice.

Dale Loomis was charged with aggravated assault. At the conclusion of his preliminary hearing, the magistrate judge dismissed the complaint against Loomis. The State appealed to the district court, which vacated the magistrate's order and remanded the case. Loomis appealed and the Court of Appeals vacated the district court's order, holding that the magistrate's dismissal of the complaint was not appealable. The State filed a petition for review, which this Court granted. We vacate the district court's order.

I.

On June 29, 2005, retired Idaho State Police Officer Darrel Kelley — a part-time employee of Honey Dippers, a business that pumps out portable toilets — drove his pick-up truck to a shooting range in Valley County to service a toilet.¹ When he arrived at the range, he discovered that the toilet was not in its usual location. An individual there told Kelley he heard that Dale Loomis had moved the toilet into the woods and dumped it. The news that Loomis, Kelley's brother-in-law, had tampered with the toilet made Kelley very angry. Their relationship was apparently already strained: Kelley had known Loomis for about sixteen years, was married to Loomis' sister, and was having an affair with Loomis' wife, which Loomis knew about.

Kelley grew even angrier when he found the toilet about a mile from the range, tipped on its side with its contents spilled all over the interior. Kelley retrieved the toilet, put it on the back of his truck, and began driving back to the Honey Dippers shop in order to clean up the mess. Kelley suspected Loomis might be in the area because he had seen Loomis driving his dump truck earlier that day. As Kelley hauled the toilet back to the shop, he looked for Loomis.

Around noon, Kelley turned west onto Davis Creek Road and spotted Loomis in his dump truck, headed toward him from the opposite direction. Both men stopped their trucks, with Kelley's vehicle blocking a couple feet of Loomis' lane. Kelley exited his vehicle and approached Loomis — who remained in the driver's seat of his truck — with the intent of engaging him in a fight by provoking Loomis into taking a swing at him. When he reached the driver-side door, Kelley told Loomis through the open window: "Get out of the truck, asshole." Loomis did not respond, so Kelley stepped closer to the truck and reached for Loomis' door handle. Kelley planned on opening Loomis' door and, although he had not considered exactly what he would do next, his ultimate goal was to get Loomis out of the truck, provoke a fight, and "tr[y] to put him in the hospital." Things did not go as Kelley planned, however, because Loomis pointed a .41 caliber revolver at Kelley's chest, pulled back the hammer, and told Kelley to "get away." Loomis later told officials that he was afraid of Kelley, and that he pulled out the weapon to frighten him off.

After Loomis produced the gun, Kelley took a step back from Loomis' truck, but continued to verbally provoke Loomis by yelling "[you don't] have enough nerve to shoot me" and calling Loomis a chicken. Loomis responded by firing one shot into the pavement near Kelley's feet. The bullet did not hit Kelley, but it was close enough that he felt the muzzle blast and pavement splatter from the gunshot. Kelley also heard a child scream, and noticed for the first time that Loomis' six-year-old son was sitting in the truck. Kelley then ran back to his truck, told Loomis that he was going to go to jail over the incident, and both parties drove away.

Kelley reported the incident to the Valley County Sheriff's Department, which sent out a deputy to arrest Loomis. Loomis was charged with aggravated assault, a felony under I.C. §§ 18-901 and 18-905.

After the preliminary hearing, the magistrate judge dismissed the complaint against Loomis for aggravated assault. Without addressing whether the State had met its burden of showing probable cause to believe that Loomis committed the crime of aggravated assault, the court held that the State was required to prove that Loomis' actions of self-defense were not justifiable.

The State appealed the dismissal to the district court, which held the State was not required to prove that a defendant's actions were not justifiable at the preliminary hearing stage. The court remanded the case and ordered the magistrate to determine whether the State had met its burden of showing probable cause on each of the material elements of aggravated assault. Loomis appealed the district court's order.

On Loomis' appeal, the Court of Appeals ordered the parties to submit supplemental briefs on an issue not previously raised by either party — whether State v. Ruiz, 106 Idaho 336, 678 P.2d 1109 (1984), limits the State's remedy to re-filing before a different magistrate in the situation where a complaint is dismissed at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing. Although both parties argued that the rule set forth in Ruiz should be relaxed when the magistrate's dismissal is based on an issue of law, the Court of Appeals held that "[d]espite the legitimate arguments presented against applying Ruiz, we are constrained to follow its precedent" because the State admitted that it could re-file the case before another magistrate. The State filed a petition for review, which this Court granted.

II.

We limit our consideration to the issue of whether the State can appeal from the dismissal of a criminal complaint at the preliminary hearing stage when that dismissal is based solely on an issue of law.

A. Standard of Review

The Supreme Court grants review of decisions of the Idaho Court of Appeals in strictly limited circumstances. Idaho Appellate Rule 118(b) provides, "[g]ranting a petition for review from a final decision of the Court of Appeals is discretionary on the part of the Supreme Court, and will be granted only where there are special and important reasons." While this Court gives serious consideration to the views of the Court of Appeals when considering a case on review from that court, it reviews the district court's decision directly. State v. Doe, 144 Idaho 819, 821, 172 P.3d 1094, 1096 (2007). When reviewing the decision of the district court acting in its appellate capacity, this Court directly reviews the district court's decision. Losser v. Bradstreet, 145 Idaho 670, 672, 183 P.3d 758, 760 (2008). Thus, this Court considers whether the district court committed error with respect to the issues presented.

B. A Magistrate's Order Dismissing a Complaint at the Preliminary Hearing Stage is not Appealable

Both parties argue that we should not consider whether Ruiz applies in this case because the parties had not previously raised the issue. However, this Court has held that when an appeal is taken from a non-appealable order, it should be dismissed — if not by motion of one of the parties, by the Court itself — for lack of jurisdiction. Highlands Dev. Corp. v. City of Boise, 145 Idaho 958, 960, 188 P.3d 900, 902 (2008). The issue of whether an order is appealable cannot be waived, and was correctly raised by the Court of Appeals.

The Idaho Criminal Rules allow parties to appeal certain orders issued by a magistrate, including an "order granting a motion to dismiss a complaint." Idaho Crim. R. 54.1(c). When viewed in isolation from the other rules, this rule appears to allow a party to appeal any order dismissing a complaint. However, we have interpreted the rule more narrowly in order to give effect to the provisions of related rules. In Ruiz, we held that a magistrate's order dismissing a criminal complaint at the preliminary hearing stage is not appealable.

The magistrate in the Ruiz case dismissed a complaint alleging murder, battery, and assault after the preliminary hearing. Id. at 336-37, 678 P.2d at 1109-10. The State appealed to the district court, which dismissed the case citing Idaho Criminal Rule 54(a), which was later renumbered as Idaho Criminal Rule 54.1(c).² Id. In affirming the district court, we noted the fundamental importance of Rule 2(a) in construing any of the criminal rules, as it sets forth their purpose and construction. Id. at 337, 678 P.2d at 1110. "These rules are intended to provide for the just determination of every criminal proceeding. They shall be construed to secure simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration and elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay." Idaho Crim. R. 2(a). After reiterating the purpose behind the criminal rules, this Court examined two options for interpreting Rule 54.1(c). Ruiz, 106 Idaho at 337, 678 P.2d at 1110. First, we could interpret the rule to allow the State to appeal from any order dismissing a complaint, which would "certainly result in unjustifiable delay," considering that the alleged crime in that case had occurred over two years prior. Id. Second, we could hold that so long as the State could re-file the complaint before another magistrate, it had no right to appeal a complaint's dismissal during the preliminary hearing phase. Id. at 338, 678 P.2d at 1111.

We adopted the second option, concluding it would "serve the interest of both the prosecution and the defense since ... it is clear that the prosecution can immediately thereafter initiate a new complaint before a different magistrate and insure the public's right to the speedy administration of justice."³ Id. at 337, 678 P.2d at 1110. The Court noted that the first interpretation would "certainly result in unjustifiable delay" and that such delay "cannot but inure to the detriment of both the prosecution and defense insofar as the availability of or the...