State v. Temple
| Decision Date | 28 April 2022 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 48174 |
| Citation | 508 P.3d 1222 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Darren Carlton TEMPLE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Nevin, Benjamin & McKay, LLP, Boise, for Appellant. Dennis A. Benjamin argued.
Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for Respondent. Justin R. Porter argued.
This case concerns whether a district court abused its discretion in quashing a subpoena seeking attorney billing records in a pending divorce proceeding and whether the district court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the legal duty to report allegations of child abuse. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
On September 20, 2018, Customs and Border Protection ("CBP") officers arrested Darren Temple in California as he crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. Temple had been in Mexico for legitimate business purposes, but CBP officers received a positive alert for his name from the National Crime Information Center indicating that Temple was wanted in Idaho on an outstanding warrant for lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor.
Prior to his arrest, Temple had filed for a divorce from Jennifer Temple in March 2018. Then, in May 2018, Jennifer's daughter, J.P., filed a report with the Canyon County Sheriff's Office alleging that Temple, her then stepfather, had sexually abused her by "fondl[ing] her breasts on multiple occasions and penetrat[ing] her vagina with his fingers" between October and November 2014, when she was fifteen years old. Though J.P. did not report the sexual abuse to law enforcement for some time, she testified that she had told her best friend, her boyfriend, and her mother, Jennifer, immediately following the last incident of sexual abuse in late November 2014. Jennifer never reported the sexual abuse to law enforcement. However, after encouragement from her therapist, J.P. eventually reported the incident to law enforcement in May 2018.
Following J.P.’s report, a detective with the Canyon County Sheriff's Office prompted her to call Temple to gather more evidence ("the confrontation call"). J.P. agreed to call Temple and confront him with her allegations, while law enforcement secretly recorded the call. During the call, Temple made multiple incriminating statements, including: "It started out and went further than it should have"; "I never tried to force anything, I always tried to be gentle"; ; and referencing the incident as the "biggest regret of my life." Temple also made several statements claiming that his conduct appealed to both his and J.P.’s sexual desires, such as "I watched your fricking nipples get hard more than once" and "I thought part of you really liked it[.]"
On September 18, 2018, the State charged Temple with one count of lewd conduct with a minor under sixteen pursuant to Idaho Code section 18-1508, alleging Temple had manual-genital contact with J.P., and one count of sexual abuse of a child under sixteen pursuant to Idaho Code section 18-1506, alleging Temple manually touched J.P.’s breasts. After a warrant was issued for Temple's arrest, he was apprehended in California two days later as he entered the United States from Mexico and subsequently returned to Canyon County.
Under the case caption and case number of his criminal case, Temple served Jennifer's divorce attorney with a subpoena duces tecum seeking "any and all documents related to the billing and payment records related to the representation of Jennifer Temple, to include, but not limited to the number of hours worked and the number of hours charged." Jennifer's attorney moved to quash the subpoena, arguing the requested records contained attorney-client privileged information and attorney work product. Temple did not respond to the motion to quash his subpoena.
The district court heard oral argument on the motion to quash. At the hearing, Temple clarified that he sought only "the amount of money that [Jennifer] has invested in this divorce," ostensibly to demonstrate that Jennifer had "a significant interest in seeing [Temple] go to prison." The district court granted the motion to quash, concluding the information sought was irrelevant and, alternatively, covered by the attorney-client privilege.
Temple subsequently filed a motion to reconsider the district court's ruling granting the motion to quash, arguing that the records he sought were not privileged. Following a hearing, the district court issued an oral ruling denying the motion. The district court reiterated its conclusion that the information sought by the subpoena constituted attorney-client privileged communications and were otherwise irrelevant to the case. The district court thereafter issued a written order quashing Temple's subpoena.
At trial, the State called two witnesses—Wendy Barth and Dr. Edwin Hutchinson—who testified that Temple had disclosed his abuse of J.P. to them during counseling sessions. Barth testified that, during a marriage counseling session, Temple disclosed to her "that there was an incident in which he had touched Jennifer's daughter in a sexually inappropriate way." She also testified that she reported this information to Child Protective Services at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Similarly, Hutchinson testified that, during a counseling session, Temple "confessed ... that he had molested his daughter." He also stated that he reported Temple's disclosure to the Department of Health and Welfare in either 2014 or 2015. However, Hutchinson also testified that he had destroyed all his patient records following his retirement, including records of his sessions with Temple.
Prior to trial, Temple filed his proposed jury instructions with the district court, including an instruction on the statutory duty to report child abuse set out in Idaho Code section 16-1605. The district court declined to deliver the instruction, reasoning that the instruction was not "pertinent to th[e] case, given that it's not the doctors [sic] that are being charged in this matter."
Although the district court did not instruct the jury on the statutory duty to report child abuse, Temple's counsel cross-examined both Barth and Hutchinson on the subject. Counsel also questioned the detective who investigated J.P.’s sexual abuse allegations about whether the detective had seen a report from either Hutchinson or any other person regarding Temple's disclosures. The detective testified that although a Health and Welfare referral "triggers a law enforcement police report," he was unable to find any records of a report from Hutchinson or anyone else regarding Temple. Finally, Temple's counsel discussed the statutory duty to report allegations of child abuse in her closing argument.
The jury returned a guilty verdict on Count II, sexual abuse of a child, but did not come to a unanimous decision on Count I, lewd conduct with a minor under sixteen. Rather than seek a retrial of Count I, the State moved to dismiss that charge. The district court granted the motion. Subsequently, the district court entered a judgment of conviction on the jury's verdict finding Temple guilty of sexual abuse of a child and sentenced Temple to ten years imprisonment, with three years fixed, but retained jurisdiction under Idaho Code section 19-2601(4). Temple timely appealed.
A trial court's decision to grant or deny a motion to quash is reviewed according to an abuse of discretion standard. State v. Loera , 167 Idaho 533, 536, 473 P.3d 802, 805 (2020) (citing State v. Joy , 155 Idaho 1, 12, 304 P.3d 276, 287 (2013) ). Under that standard, this Court asks whether the court "(1) correctly perceived the issue as one of discretion; (2) acted within the outer boundaries of its discretion; (3) acted consistently with the legal standards applicable to the specific choices available to it; and (4) reached its decision by the exercise of reason." Id. (quoting State v. Le Veque , 164 Idaho 110, 113, 426 P.3d 461, 464 (2018) ).
"This Court reviews the trial court's jury instructions de novo to determine whether, when considered as a whole, they fairly and adequately present the issues and state the applicable law." State v. Medina , 165 Idaho 501, 507, 447 P.3d 949, 955 (2019) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing State v. Dunlap , 155 Idaho 345, 364, 313 P.3d 1, 20 (2013) ).
Temple argues that the district court abused its discretion in quashing his subpoena because the billing records from his ex-wife's divorce lawyer were relevant for impeachment purposes, the records were not privileged, and there was not sufficient evidence for the district court to conclude that the subpoena imposed an undue burden. The State contends that the billing records were irrelevant, subject to attorney-client privilege, and oppressive for other reasons. The State also argues that Temple has not preserved his argument that the dates of certain billing records would be relevant to impeach J.P.’s testimony.
Assuming, without deciding the issue, that the district court erred in quashing Temple's subpoena, we hold that any error was harmless because the State has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the lack of attorney billing statements did not contribute to the verdict. That is to say, the probative value of the evidence against Temple outweighed the marginal probative value of the information sought by the subpoena.
Temple argues that the information sought from subpoenaing...
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