State v. Pierce
| Decision Date | 13 October 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 35063.,35063. |
| Citation | 244 P.3d 145,150 Idaho 1 |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Respondent, v. Luis James PIERCE, Defendant–Appellant. |
Molly J. Huskey, State Appellate Public Defender, Boise, for appellant. Jason Pintler argued.
Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Rosemary Emory argued.
Luis Pierce (Pierce) appeals the district court's order revoking probation and ordering him to serve his previously suspended sentence. We affirm.
On the evening of March 6, 2006, Luis Pierce pulled down the underwear of a four-year-old girl, M.B., to look at her genital area for his sexual gratification. He was arrested later that same night. The following day, the State filed a complaint charging Pierce with sexual abuse of a child under sixteen years of age (sexual abuse), a violation of I.C. § 18–1506. At his initial appearance, a preliminary hearing was scheduled for March 20, 2006. On the day of the scheduled hearing, the prosecuting attorney moved to dismiss the complaint because the complaint failed to assert that Pierce was eighteen years of age or older, an element required by I.C. § 18–1506. The motion was granted. The following day, the State filed a new complaint charging Pierce with sexual abuse, this time including the allegation that Pierce was over eighteen at the time of the crime.
On April 4, 2006, following a preliminary hearing, Pierce was held to answer to the district court for the charge of sexual abuse. On April 5, 2006, the prosecutor filed an information1 charging Pierce with sexual abuse. On August 1, 2006, Pierce pleaded guilty to the charged offense. A sentencing hearing was held on October 25, 2006, and the district court sentenced Pierce to a term of fifteen years, with five years fixed, and retained jurisdiction.
On April 5, 2007, the district court exercised jurisdiction and placed Pierce on probation for a term of fourteen years. Seven months later, the State filed a motion for probation violation. Pierce admitted to violating his probation and on February 8, 2008, the district court revoked his probation and ordered execution of the previously suspended sentence. Pierce timely appealed.
Pierce asserts two issues on appeal. First, Pierce claims for the first time on appeal that his judgment must be vacated because the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. This argument is based upon the provision of Article I, § 8 of the Idaho Constitution2 that "after a charge has been ignored by a grand jury, no person shall be held to answer, or for trial therefor, upon information of public prosecutor." Second, Pierce claims the district court abused its discretion by revoking his probation and ordering his original sentence into execution.
1. Whether Pierce's conviction must be vacated for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion by revoking Pierce's probation and requiring him to serve the previously suspended sentence.
Pierce asks this Court to vacate his conviction for want of subject matter jurisdiction.
Pierce asserts that a grand jury ignored3 the sexual abuse charge and consequently, despite the State having filed an information, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction.
Pierce's claim that a grand jury ignored the sexual abuse charge is predicated upon a single sentence uttered by the deputy prosecuting attorney at the time of his sentencing hearing. When offering photographs as a supplement to the presentence report, the prosecutor stated "These were shown to the grand jury as well." Although he agreed to the inclusion of the photographs in the presentence report, Pierce's attorney did not comment on the reference to grand jury proceedings. Indeed, Pierce did not raise the question whether the sexual abuse charge was presented to a grand jury at any time during the proceedings before the district court.
Instead, Pierce first raised this issue upon appeal from the district court's order revoking his probation. On October 14, 2006, Pierce filed a motion with this Court to obtain an order requiring the district court to augment the record with a transcript of "grand jury proceedings, if they exist, held to determine whether probable cause existed to indict Mr. Pierce for crimes related to his alleged conduct against [M.B.]...." Pierce also sought an order requiring the district court to augment the record to include any document, if one exists, showing the grand jury declined to indict and in the alternative, if no grand jury proceeding occurred, a written statement indicating such. In response, this Court entered an order requiring the district court to "search their records and report whether any grand jury proceeding was initiated as to Defendant Luis James Pierce and report existence or non-existence of the same...." The Ada County Clerk responded to the order, writing that three grand jury proceedings may have taken place during the time frame in question, but records of those proceedings were not received by the office of the clerk.4
Pierce claims the information filed by the State did not confer subject matter jurisdiction on the district court because a grand jury proceeding was held before the information was filed and failed to indict. We do not decide whether the record before this Court is sufficient to support Pierce's claim that his rights guaranteed by Article I, § 8 of the Idaho Constitution were violated because we find that this claim was not preserved for consideration on appeal.
This Court has consistently held that "[s]ubject matter jurisdiction in a criminal case is conferred by the filing of an ‘information, indictment, or complaint alleging an offense was committed within the State of Idaho.’ " State v. Jones, 140 Idaho 755, 757–58, 101 P.3d 699, 701–02 (2004) (quoting State v. Rogers, 140 Idaho 223, 227, 91 P.3d 1127, 1131 (2004) ). See also State v. Lampien, 148 Idaho 367, 372, 223 P.3d 750, 755 (2009) ; State v. Quintero, 141 Idaho 619, 621, 115 P.3d 710, 712 (2005).
This Court has previously considered the question whether a grand jury's failure to indict deprives the district court of subject matter jurisdiction. In State v. Wilson, 41 Idaho 598, 242 P. 787 (1925), the defendant asserted that the district court erred in refusing to quash the information. The motion to quash was predicated upon evidence that the grand jury had considered and ignored the charge. Id. at 606, 242 P. at 789. Despite Wilson's attorney's insistence that this "raised a jurisdictional question of the highest order," id., the challenge was rejected by a majority of the Court due to the appellant's failure to include the action of the trial court in a special bill of exceptions as was then required. Id. at 602, 242 P. at 787. There can be no doubt that the Court specifically considered the jurisdictional question, as Chief Justice William A. Lee vigorously dissented, asserting that the Court had the obligation to resolve the jurisdictional question, stating:
The state has seen fit, by its organic law, to deprive itself of a right to prosecute any one upon a criminal charge after such charge has been ignored by a grand jury, and the question of whether such a charge has been ignored is always a jurisdictional one.
Id. at 613, 242 P. at 791 (C.J. Lee, dissenting).
Our conclusion that the language upon which Pierce relies does not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction is reinforced by another decision from this Court interpreting another portion of the same constitutional provision. Article I, § 8, contains two prohibitions against being "held to answer." The first is in the provision stating, "No person shall be held to answer for any felony or criminal offense of any grade, unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury or on information of the public prosecutor, after a commitment by a magistrate...." The second is in the provision stating "that after a charge has been ignored by a grand jury, no person shall be held to answer, or for trial therefor, upon information of the public prosecutor."
In In re Marshall, 6 Idaho 516, 56 P. 470 (1899), the defendant sought a writ of habeas corpus after his conviction in the district court contending that he had not had a preliminary examination nor did he waive it. This Court denied that claim, holding, "If the defendant had no preliminary examination, and did not waive same, he should present that question to the trial court when called on to plead or be held to have waived it." Id. at 518, 56 P. at 471 (citing State v. Clark, 4 Idaho 7, 35 P. 710 (1894), State v. Larkins, 5 Idaho 200, 47 P. 945 (1897) ). If the phrase that "no person shall be held to answer" for a felony without a presentment or indictment of a grand jury or an information filed by the prosecutor after commitment by a magistrate were interpreted to be a limitation on the subject matter jurisdiction of the court, that lack of jurisdiction could not have been waived. Wayne v. Alspach, 20 Idaho 144, 150, 116 P. 1033, 1035 (1911) ().
There is no reason to believe that the words "no person shall be held to answer" have different meanings within the same section of the Idaho Constitution. The first provision prohibiting a person from being held to answer in the district court on an information without a commitment by a magistrate after a preliminary examination does not limit the subject matter jurisdiction of the district court. There is no basis for holding that the latter provision, using identical language, limits the district court's...
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