Porter v. State

80 P.3d 1021, 139 Idaho 420, 2003 Ida. LEXIS 191
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 3, 2003
Docket28361
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 80 P.3d 1021 (Porter v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Porter v. State, 80 P.3d 1021, 139 Idaho 420, 2003 Ida. LEXIS 191 (Idaho 2003).

Opinion

TROUT, Chief Justice.

A motion to dismiss an inmate’s third petition for post-conviction relief is before the Court. George J. Porter appealed pro se the district court’s order granting the State of Idaho’s motion for summary dismissal of his third petition for post-conviction relief and the State has now filed a motion to dismiss that appeal based upon Idaho Code § 19- *421 2719. Because the post-conviction claims raised by Porter were known or reasonably should have been known at the time he filed his first petition for post-conviction relief, he is barred from raising those claims in this third petition for post-conviction relief. Thus, pursuant to I.C. § 19-2719(11), we grant the State’s motion to dismiss this appeal.

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 1990, George J. Porter was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. He filed a petition for post-conviction relief and this Court affirmed his conviction, sentence, and denial of post-conviction relief in State v. Porter, 130 Idaho 772, 948 P.2d 127 (1997). In May 1998, Porter initiated federal habeas proceedings and during that litigation filed his first successive post-conviction petition in May 1999. The district court found he failed to meet the requirements of I.C. § 19-2719, and dismissed the petition. Pursuant to the State’s motion to dismiss, tins Court dismissed his appeal in August 2001. Porter v. State, 136 Idaho 257, 32 P.3d 151 (2001) (“Porter II”).

Prior to this Court’s ruling in Porter II, Porter filed a third petition for post-conviction relief on June 11, 2001. Porter’s petition is based on two ineffective assistance of counsel claims and a contention that the State withheld exculpatory evidence. The State moved to dismiss, arguing again that the petition did not meet the criteria of I.C. § 19-2719, and the district court granted the State’s motion to dismiss. Porter filed this appeal pro se and the State has filed a motion to dismiss the appeal pursuant to I.C. § 19-2719, contending this Court is without jurisdiction to hear’ the appeal.

II.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The procedure for post-conviction review in capital cases is contained in I.C. § 19-2719. Porter, 136 Idaho at 259-262, 32 P.3d at 153-156. The statute provides the defendant with one opportunity to raise all challenges to the conviction and sentence in a petition for post-conviction relief, except in those unusual cases where it can be demonstrated that the issues were not known and reasonably should not have been known within the time frame allowed by the statute. I.C. § 19-2719(5). A claim that reasonably should be known immediately upon the completion of the trial is deemed waived if it is not raised in the first post-conviction petition. See Fields v. State, 135 Idaho 286, 290, 17 P.3d 230, 234 (2000). Thus, we review the allegations in Porter’s successive petition to determine whether his claims were known or reasonably should have been known -within statutory time limits established in I.C. § 19-2719. If such claims are barred, no appeal on the merits will be heard, and we will dismiss the successive petition. I.C. § 19-2719(11).

III.

DISCUSSION

A. Porter’s claims: ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.

Porter raises two ineffective assistance of counsel claims in the current petition. First, Porter contends his trial counsel was ineffective when he failed to challenge State’s exhibit 69, a cutting from a black guitar case which contained blood type A, by filing a motion for funds to hire a criminalist to review Alan Spanbauer’s and Ann Bradley’s blood analysis. Porter argues that because his post-conviction counsel was granted limited resources, it was not until 2000, when funds were made available to him to obtain a criminalist to do a full review as part of his federal habeas petition, that he discovered trial counsel’s ineffectiveness. Second, Porter claims his trial counsel failed to follow his instructions to “investigate, develop, submit and argue potentially material exculpatory evidence based upon Spanbauer’s erroneous misleading blood type A finding, including Bradley’s erroneous misleading genetic characteristic marker testing conclusions.”

*422 Porter also contends the State withheld exculpatory evidence, including “[ejvidence of notes made on worksheets” and “[ejvidence that Ann R. Bradley could not have reached her conclusions ... based upon her reliance upon Spanbauer’s conclusions.” Porter argues that he could not have known of this evidence until sufficient funds and resources were available to him.

The State argues that each of the bases for Porter’s third petition was known or reasonably should have been known at the time Porter filed his first post-conviction petition. Regarding the first claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the State counters that all of Porter’s requests for funds to assess the effectiveness of trial counsel’s preparation and cross-examination of the State’s expert witnesses on blood, hair, footprints, etc., were granted in his first post-conviction proceeding. With respect to the second ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the State argues that Porter knew at the time of the first post-conviction proceeding whether trial counsel followed his directions or not. The State also argues that this same argument was made in the first petition, and was therefore known. And in response to Porter’s prosecutorial misconduct claim, the State asserts that the notes Porter claims were withheld from him were actually attached to a report addressed to his post-conviction counsel on February 10,1995. Thus, according to the State, Porter had possession of the notes by the time of his first post-conviction proceeding. The district court agreed with the State and dismissed Porter’s third post-conviction petition for failure to comply with the mandates of I.C. § 19-2719.

B. Porter’s successive petition is barred by I.C. § 19-2719.

Idaho Code § 19-2719 provides a capital defendant one opportunity to raise all challenges to a conviction and sentence in a petition for post-conviction relief unless it can be demonstrated that claims raised in a successive petition were not known and reasonably should not have been known within forty-two days of the entry of the judgment of conviction. I.C. § 19-2719(5); see Pizzuto v. State, 127 Idaho 469, 471, 903 P.2d 58, 60 (1995). A petitioner, bringing a successive petition for post-conviction relief has a heightened burden and must make a prima facie showing that issues raised in that petition fit within the narrow exception provided by I.C. § 19-2719(5). Paz v. State, 123 Idaho 758, 760, 852 P.2d 1355

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Stuart v. State
232 P.3d 813 (Idaho Supreme Court, 2010)
State v. Leavitt
120 P.3d 283 (Idaho Supreme Court, 2005)
Porter v. State
102 P.3d 1099 (Idaho Supreme Court, 2004)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
80 P.3d 1021, 139 Idaho 420, 2003 Ida. LEXIS 191, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/porter-v-state-idaho-2003.