Idaho Supreme Court - Criminal Decisions 2016

Justia Opinion Summary: The question before the Supreme Court in this matter was whether exigent circumstances existed to justify a warrantless blood draw. Defendant-appellant Daniel Chenobieff argued the blood draw violated his constitutional…

Justia Opinion Summary: Tarango Deforest Padilla was convicted of two counts of grand theft and was found to be a persistent violator. He appealed his conviction, and it was affirmed by the Idaho Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion. He…

Justia Opinion Summary: Blair Olsen served as sheriff of Jefferson County from January 1989 until May 2015, when he resigned due to his conviction in this case. While he was the sheriff, the county provided Olsen with two cell phones and paid…

Justia Opinion Summary: James Clark was charged with misdemeanor trespass in the Idaho Industrial Commission office in Boise. At the close of the State’s evidence at trial, Clark moved for a judgment of acquittal, which the court denied. The…

Justia Opinion Summary: Edgar Farfan-Galvan appealed his conviction for felony driving under the influence (“DUI”). Farfan-Galvan moved to dismiss or remand the charge, based upon his claim that one of the prior DUI convictions upon which the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Jonathan Hill was convicted for felony driving under the influence (DUI). He raised one issue on appeal. Over an unsuccessful hearsay objection, the deputy sheriff who conducted field sobriety tests (FSTs) of Hill was…

Justia Opinion Summary: Alik Takhsilov appealed the district court’s summary dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief, arguing that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request a competency evaluation prior to his entry…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant-appellant John Linze, Jr. appealed after he was convicted for conviction of possession of methamphetamine. On appeal, he argued the district court erred by refusing to suppress evidence obtained by police…

Justia Opinion Summary: Cesar Sepulveda appealed after a jury found him guilty of felony intimidating a witness, misdemeanor domestic battery, injury to a child, and two counts of attempted violation of a no contact order. Sepulveda contended…

Justia Opinion Summary: Marcelino Baeza appealed his conviction for one count of lewd conduct with a minor child under the age of sixteen involving his five-year-old niece, J.C. Baeza argued that allowing J.C. to testify at trial through…

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant Miguel Cosio-Nava pled guilty in 2014 to the felony offense of domestic battery with traumatic injury, in violation of Idaho Code sections 18-903 and 18-918(2). Cosio was a Mexican citizen who had been in the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Scott Ostler was convicted of three counts of lewd conduct with a minor child under sixteen, and one count of sexual abuse of a child under the age of sixteen. This appeal related only to a single count of lewd conduct:…

Justia Opinion Summary: In 2010, Kandi Hall (“Kandi”) was looking for work, having been fired from her previous job as a paralegal. Emmett Corrigan (“Emmett”) was waiting to learn the results of the bar exam he had taken and wanted to hire a…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant-appellant Kirk Charlson appealed after he was convicted for felony driving under the influence. Before the trial, Charlson filed a motion to suppress the results of an evidentiary blood draw that was conducted…

Justia Opinion Summary: A jury convicted Mark Lankford on two counts of felony murder for the 1983 murders of Robert and Cheryl Bravance, for which he received the death penalty. The United States Supreme Court overturned the sentence after it…

Justia Opinion Summary: In 2013, 44-year-old defendant Marcos Jimenez was at his girlfriend’s apartment after she had gone to work leaving him to care for her 17-year-old daughter, who had the mental capacity of a 10-year-old and a learning…

Justia Opinion Summary: In 2010, defendant William Dee Van Komen, Jr. was sentenced to five years in the custody of the Idaho Board of Correction, with the first two years fixed and the remaining three years indeterminate, for possession of…

Justia Opinion Summary: Kentsler Jones appealed his conviction for driving while under the influence of alcohol (DUI), and felony excessive alcohol concentration. On appeal, Jones argued that the district court erred when it excluded evidence…

Justia Opinion Summary: On July 12, 2014, around 5:00 A.M., Ben Savage appeared at the Custer County Sheriff’s Office and reported that defendant-respondent Jon Huffaker had pointed a loaded rifle and threatened to kill him. At approximately…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant-appellant Lance Taylor appealed a district court order denying him credit for time served as a condition of probation. Specifically, the credit he sought was for periods of incarceration during his drug court…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant-appellant Daniel Leary appealed a district court’s order revoking probation and imposing his sentence. He argued the district court erred in calculating his credit for time served. He contended that the 2015…

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant Dale Shackelford was sentenced to death after being convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and other crimes. He appealed and sought post-conviction relief, and his death sentence was set aside. At…

Justia Opinion Summary: In 2013, defendant Dakota Lee Villafuerte was placed on probation for the felony crime of battery with the intent to commit lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under sixteen years of age. The conviction for that…

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant Troy Svelmoe was convicted by jury of felony driving under the influence (DUI). Svelmoe was pulled over in Post Falls for vehicle equipment violations. The officer suspected that Svelmoe was driving under the…

Justia Opinion Summary: An information was filed charging Gerald Umphenour with possession of methamphetamine, a felony, and with resisting and obstructing an officer and having an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle, both…

Justia Opinion Summary: Respondent Kyle Rios was involved in a car accident in Lewiston. After the accident, Rios was arrested and taken to a nearby hospital by Officer Williams. At the hospital, Rios declined to sign a consent form for a blood…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant Brian Pratt was charged with two counts of delivery of a controlled substance and one count of trafficking in methamphetamine, all of which were felonies. He absconded after the first day of trial and was found…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner-appellant Shane Crawford petitioned for post-conviction relief after he was convicted for lewd conduct with a minor under the age of sixteen. Petitioner claimed he received ineffective assistance of counsel at…

Justia Opinion Summary: Brant Lee Eversole was arrested for driving while under the influence and, after refusing to submit to a breath alcohol test, was taken to a hospital where his blood was drawn. Based on the results of the blood test,…

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant-State charged respondent Jamie Lynn Pachosa with felony possession of a controlled substance, possession of paraphernalia, and providing false information to a law enforcement officer. Before the trial, Pachosa…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant Darrien Dabney forcibly sodomized two six-year-old boys. At the time, Defendant was a developmentally disabled eighteen-year-old and had been living with the boys’ family less than a month. He had previously…

Justia Opinion Summary: In 2013, defendant Andrey Yermola texted his wife asking to meet her so they could talk. She responded that she was at work, but agreed to meet him at the hospital where she worked in Spokane, Washington, during her…

Justia Opinion Summary: Appellant Arthur Schmierer filed a motion under Idaho Criminal Rule 35 to correct an illegal sentence. In the underlying action, Schmierer had pled guilty to an amended superseding indictment that charged him with two…

Justia Opinion Summary: Michelle McIntosh appealed her conviction and resulting sentence after she was found guilty of trafficking in methamphetamine, possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver, two counts of delivery of…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant Jason McClure was convicted of criminal contempt after he failed to make restitution payments required under his 1999 conviction for burglary. The contempt charge was based on a “Motion and Affidavit in Support…

Justia Opinion Summary: The State appealed following the conviction of defendant Benito Razo-Chavez for one count of possession of oxycodone. The State did not not challenge the outcome of the case and did not seek to overturn the verdict or…