State v. Rice
| Decision Date | 05 January 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 12496,12496 |
| Parties | The STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Douglas Houston RICE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
William H. Mulberry, Pinehurst, for defendant-appellant.
Wayne L. Kidwell, Atty. Gen., Lynn E. Thomas, Deputy Atty. Gen., David G. High, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boise, for plaintiff-respondent.
On November 23, 1976 the appellant, Douglas Houston Rice, was convicted by a jury of resisting an officer in violation of Idaho Code § 18-2703. The maximum punishment for that offense is five years in the State Penitentiary and/or a $5,000 fine. A presentence report was prepared, and a sentencing hearing conducted on December 13, 1976. After hearing arguments of counsel and the appellant's statement, the trial court sentenced the appellant to an indeterminate period in the Idaho State Penitentiary not to exceed three years. Appellant duly perfected this appeal urging that his sentence was unduly harsh, and that certain hospital records were erroneously excluded from evidence. The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
The record indicates that the defendant initiated a violent encounter with law enforcement officials after being booked and jailed for a separate crime. It took the combined efforts of several officers to subdue him, and one officer was kicked in the groin during the scuffle. The record further indicates that appellant had a significant prior criminal record, including a period of incarceration in the King County Jail in the State of Washington.
Sentencing is a matter committed to the discretion of the trial judge, and the defendant has the burden of showing a clear abuse of discretion on appeal. State v. Chapa, 98 Idaho 54, 558 P.2d 83 (1976). The facts of this case, even apart from appellant's prior record, demonstrate that the trial court did not abuse its discretion. 1
The second point urged on appeal is that the trial court erroneously excluded defendant's Exhibit 1. That exhibit is a hospital record excluded from evidence though offered as a business record pursuant to I.C. § 9-414. That section states:
A record of an act, condition or event, shall, Insofar as relevant, be competent evidence if the custodian or other qualified witness testifies to the identity and the mode of its preparation, and if it was made in the regular course of business, at or near the time of the act, condition or event, and if, in the opinion of the court, the sources of information, method and time of preparation were such as to justify its admission. (emphasis supplied).
Business records must be relevant to be admissible. Ed Sparks & Sons v. Joe Campbell Const. Co., 99 Idaho 139, 578 P.2d 681 (1978). Here, the record indicates that the exhibit was offered to prove that the appellant had x-rays taken of his face some ten days after the incident which led to this conviction. The fact that such x-rays were taken may have been relevant for impeachment purposes had the prosecution...
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