Stockwell v. State
| Decision Date | 02 December 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 12118,12118 |
| Citation | 573 P.2d 116,98 Idaho 797 |
| Parties | Michael Jerome STOCKWELL, Petitioner-Respondent, v. STATE of Idaho, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Wayne L. Kidwell, Atty. Gen., Lynn E. Thomas, Deputy Atty. Gen., Boise, for defendant-appellant.
Peter D. McDermott of McDermott & McDermott, Pocatello, for petitioner-respondent.
This is an appeal from an order granting Michael Jerome Stockwell's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. 1 If the procedural irregularities on both sides are overlooked, the appeal by the state attempts to raise the following issues: (1) whether a magistrate in a preliminary hearing may reduce the charge in a complaint when the evidence presented in a preliminary hearing is capable of sustaining inferences supporting the charge in the complaint; (2) under what circumstances can the prosecuting attorney have a preliminary hearing reopened to submit additional evidence supporting the charge; (3) under what circumstances may a prosecutor in a felony case file a second criminal complaint following his dismissal without prejudice of a first criminal proceeding for the same charge in which the committing magistrate has bound the defendant over to district court on a reduced charge. These questions are presented in the following factual context.
On October 18, 1975, the defendant respondent Michael Jerome Stockwell shot and killed Robert Miller while he was a guest in Miller's home. On the following day, an investigating police officer filed a criminal complaint charging Stockwell with murder in the second degree. On October 30, a preliminary hearing was held in the magistrate's division of the district court. At that hearing, Gary Drzymolski, who was an acquaintance of both Stockwell and Miller and a witness to the shooting, testified to the following scenario.
Drzymolski and Stockwell met at Miller's house at approximately noon on the day of the shooting to replace a water pump on Miller's car. The three remained in one another's company throughout most of the afternoon and evening of that day. During that time, between noon and 9:00 p. m., the time of the shooting, they consumed approximately five twelve-packs of beer. Sometime before the shooting, the three of them retired to the recreation room in Miller's home to listen to the stereo and continue drinking beer. By this time, Drzymolski was "really drunk and from the actions of the other two guys I would say they were just as drunk as I was."
While they were all in the recreation room, Miller unsheathed a knife and slit Drzymolski's pants three inches up from the bottom, then moments later he did the same thing to defendant Stockwell's pants. Stockwell, according to Drzymolski, pulled a gun a moment later and told Miller never to pull a knife on him again, then held the gun close to Miller and fired two shots, neither of which hit Miller. Miller lunged forward at Stockwell and Stockwell kicked at him and fired another shot, this one hitting Miller in the chest and killing him. Stockwell attempted to resuscitate Miller, but his efforts were to no avail.
Four other witnesses were called at the preliminary hearing. One, a pathologist, testified that the cause of Miller's death was a gunshot wound. Another, the ambulance attendant who had answered the emergency call, testified that a blood sample was taken from the decedent and later analysis showed that the decedent's blood sample had an alcohol content of .266 percent. The other two witnesses to testify were detectives from the Pocatello police department who had answered the initial call reporting the shooting. None of these witnesses' testimony concerned the degree of Stockwell's intoxication either before or after the shooting.
After hearing this testimony and argument by counsel, the magistrate said the following:
At this point the prosecutor, anticipating that the magistrate intended to reduce the charge against Stockwell from second degree murder to manslaughter, asked permission of the court to reopen the case:
The magistrate denied the prosecutor's motion to reopen on the ground that, "as far as I'm concerned both sides have rested and the arguments have been made." Id. The magistrate then bound the defendant over to the district court on a charge of voluntary manslaughter and reduced his bond from $50,000 to $15,000.
Up to this point the proceedings were fairly straightforward. But then, on October 30, 1975, the afternoon of the same day of the preliminary hearing, after a discussion about the dismissal of the charge with the district judge, the prosecutor upon his own motion and without notice to Stockwell or his attorney filed a motion in the district court to dismiss the charge against Stockwell, "without prejudice in the interests of justice." The motion filed by the prosecuting attorney contained a cryptic, "It is so ordered," typed on the bottom thereof which the district judge signed. 2
On that same day, in an apparent attempt to circumvent the ruling of the magistrate reducing the charge against Stockwell from second degree murder to voluntary manslaughter, a second criminal complaint 3 charging Stockwell with second degree murder was sworn out. Stockwell was re-arrested on this complaint, and arraigned before a different magistrate who reset bond at $50,000 and set a new preliminary hearing for November 12, 1975.
On Friday, November 7, at 5:00 p. m., Stockwell, through his attorney, filed the petition for writ of habeas corpus in the district court (District Court Case No. 34012) seeking his discharge from custody on the ground that the actions of the prosecutor in dismissing the first criminal proceeding in which he had been bound over on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and then refiling the same second degree murder charge was in violation of due process under the federal and state Constitutions, and in violation of Rule 5.1(a) and (b) of the Idaho Rules of Criminal Procedure. The transcript indicates that the district judge signed the order for a writ of habeas corpus on Saturday, November 8, 1975. The hearing on the habeas corpus matter was held the following Monday, November 10, 1975, at 4:00 p. m. The record indicates that the prosecuting attorney was not aware of the habeas corpus proceedings until the day of the hearing when he was apparently served with the order and the writ. The record does not indicate that the sheriff, who apparently had custody, was ever served. The record does not indicate whether a return to the writ or an answer to the return, as contemplated by I.C. § 19-4201 et seq. was ever filed. 4
At the hearing held on November 10, at 4:00 p. m., no evidence was submitted by the petitioner on behalf of his claim. The prosecuting attorney advised the court that he had brought the defendant into court as ordered, and the entire hearing consisted of a colloquy between the prosecuting attorney on the one hand and the defendant's counsel on the other. That colloquy was concerned primarily with the propriety of the prosecuting attorney's ex parte dismissal of the first criminal proceeding in which the defendant had been bound over to the district court for voluntary manslaughter, and then filing the second criminal complaint for second degree murder for the identical crime which was contained in the first criminal complaint.
On November 20, 1975, the district court entered a memorandum decision and order in which, among other things, it said the following:
(1) Although the prosecutor had additional witnesses present at the preliminary hearing, he had made no showing of the nature of the evidence he expected to elicit from those witnesses;
(2) The prosecutor did not contend he had newly discovered evidence not available to him at the time of the first preliminary hearing (which the court apparently must have felt was the only circumstance in which another complaint could be filed); and,
(3) The procedure followed by the prosecutor of dismissing an action and refiling did violence to Stockwell's due process rights and was not provided for by the Rules of Criminal Procedure.
The district court concluded that it was "left with no alternative but to grant Petitioner the relief prayed for." This was done by another cryptic order attached to the end of the memorandum decision, which read as follows:
"District Judge" Clk.Tr., p. 73.
The state has appealed. We reverse.
The first issue which must be addressed is the appealability of the order entered by the district court.
The order entered by the district court is not easily categorized for purposes of determining ...
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