State v. Griffin

838 P.2d 862, 122 Idaho 733, 1992 Ida. LEXIS 148
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 27, 1992
Docket17446 and 18218
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 838 P.2d 862 (State v. Griffin) 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
State v. Griffin, 838 P.2d 862, 122 Idaho 733, 1992 Ida. LEXIS 148 (Idaho 1992).

Opinions

[734]*734JOHNSON, Justice.

This is a criminal case. The appeal challenges the sentences imposed following guilty pleas to three counts of delivery of a controlled substance. The issues presented are whether the trial court abused its discretion and violated the defendant’s rights to due process of law and equal protection of the law. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion nor violate the defendant’s rights as to any of the issues presented, except as to the trial court’s consideration of the defendant’s refusal to reveal his drug sources. As to this issue, we remand the case to the trial court for reconsideration of the defendant’s motion for reduction of the sentences in light of the defendant’s assertion of fear for his life if he does reveal his drug sources. On remand, the trial court must determine the reasonableness of the defendant’s fear.

I.

THE BACKGROUND AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS.

Mitchell Sherman Griffin, Jr. sold a quantity of cocaine to a confidential government informant in 1986 and sold quantities of methamphetamine to confidential government informants on two occasions in 1987. The state charged Griffin with three counts of delivery of a controlled substance. Griffin pleaded not guilty to these charges.

During the trial, Griffin took the witness stand in his own defense in an effort to prove that he had been entrapped by the confidential government informants into making the sales of drugs. During the state’s cross-examination of Griffin, the prosecuting attorney asked Griffin: “You have customers right now that you’re afraid to have their names released?” Griffin answered: “I feel just like — let’s say an attorney, that these people are confidential — the things they do with me and the things I’ve done to them — with them are confidential and I cannot tell their names.” Griffin also refused to say who his sources of cocaine were. The prosecuting attorney asked Griffin: “You’ve got a source of cocaine that you’re afraid to tell their name?” Griffin answered: “No, I don’t.” Griffin also refused to name who had furnished him with methamphetamine and marijuana or where he had seen “crack” being made.

When the prosecuting attorney asked Griffin whether the reason he would not identify the names of those from whom he obtained cocaine and methamphetamine and where he saw crack being made was that he was afraid of those people, Griffin answered: “I feel that I am the one that’s on trial and there is — my sense of honor is no sense in bringing anybody else into it.”

Shortly after this interrogation by the prosecuting attorney, Griffin’s attorney requested a recess to consult with Griffin. Griffin then asked, to change his pleas to guilty. The trial court accepted the pleas, ordered a presentence investigation, and set a date for sentencing.

After receiving the presentence investigation report, Griffin’s attorney submitted a sentencing memorandum in which the attorney commented on the presentence report and requested a withheld judgment and probation for Griffin. In the sentencing memorandum, Griffin’s attorney represented that Griffin denied that his drug dealing was nearly so involved as the presentence investigator indicated in the presentence report and stated that identification by Griffin of his sources “presents, a danger to Mr. Griffin and would amount to a sentence of exile from his community.”

At the sentencing hearing, the state presented evidence, over Griffin’s objection, that cocaine delivered by Griffin in a drug transaction that was not charged in the three counts to which Griffin had pleaded guilty, was 100 percent pure. From this information, the state’s witness drew the inference that Griffin was probably either “transporting cocaine into the country from its manufacturer” or that Griffin was “very close to the source of the supplier of cocaine into the country.” Relying on this testimony and evidence presented at the trial indicating Griffin’s prior drug activity, the state argued that Griffin was “a major drug dealer,” and deserved incarceration [735]*735rather than probation or a suspended sentence.

After noting that the trial court normally placed first-time drug offenders on probation or gave them suspended sentences, the trial court explained that he was sentencing Griffin to imprisonment for the following reasons: (1) when Griffin testified at trial, he refused to answer questions about his drug sources and customers, indicating allegiance to them; (2) Griffin admitted that he was a multiple offender and a “habitual criminal,” even though this was the first time Griffin had been caught; and (3) the trial court needed to send a message that it would not “treat relatively big time drug dealers with kid gloves.” In commenting on the effect of Griffin’s refusal to identify his sources and customers, the trial court commented that this was not “the overriding factor,” was “not the reason why this defendant is going to go to prison,” and was “one of the least important of the reasons” the trial court sentenced Griffin to prison.

In considering mitigating facts surrounding Griffin’s crimes, the trial court found that despite the actions of the state’s confidential informants, Griffin did not act under a strong provocation, but rather as a result of Griffin’s “desire to make some money in drug dealing.” The trial court also stated that Griffin’s entrapment defense at trial would have failed because Griffin was predisposed to sell drugs.

The trial court sentenced Griffin to three concurrent terms of ten years each with five years of minimum confinement for each of the three counts. Later, the trial court resentenced Griffin for the charge of delivering cocaine, because the Unified Sentencing Act of 1986 (I.C. § 19-2513) that provides for the imposition of a period of minimum confinement did not apply to this charge. The trial court modified the sentence on the cocaine delivery charge to an indeterminate term of ten years, without requiring any minimum period of confinement.

Griffin moved for a further reduction of his sentences, contending that the sentences were: (1) unduly harsh and excessive, (2) illegal because they were based upon information on other unadjudicated offenses, and (3) an abuse of discretion. Griffin also requested that the trial court take judicial notice of the files and records in other specified drug cases in Latah County. Griffin asserted that his sentences violated his right to equal protection of the laws, because of the disparity between his sentences and the sentences in similar cases in the same court.

Griffin’s attorney submitted a memorandum in support of the motion for reduction of sentence. Attached to the memorandum was a handwritten document prepared by Griffin in which he stated:

I feel that I was sentenced more stiffly than usual because I refused to reveal my drug sources and customers. I did not refuse to reveal my drug sources and customers because of allegiance, but because I felt that if I did reveal them, I would never be able to live in the community that I have grown up in and my entire family and friends live in without being in fear of my life. It would have alienated me from the people and country I love. I also believe that I should take responsibility for my actions and not try to get out of punishment by “snitching” on other people.

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Bluebook (online)
838 P.2d 862, 122 Idaho 733, 1992 Ida. LEXIS 148, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-griffin-idaho-1992.