Rome v. State, 431 P.3d 242

Rome was convicted of aiding and abetting burglary after a woman took a vacuum from Walmart and entered his truck; jury also found him a persistent violator based on prior felonies.
He filed a pro se post-conviction petition alleging ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel (multiple grounds), later amended with counsel.
At the post-conviction bench trial Rome called his trial/appellate counsel and his partner; after Rome rested the State moved for involuntary dismissal and the court granted it.
Rome argued on appeal that the district court abused its discretion by (1) refusing to take judicial notice of various records/transcripts and (2) finding trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to request an accessory-after-the-fact lesser-included instruction.
The district court ruled Rome’s judicial-notice requests were overbroad/unspecific under former I.R.E. 201(d) and held accessory-after-the-fact is not a lesser-included offense of aiding-and-abetting under the statutory theory; it also noted Rome’s appellate record was insufficient to show the pleading theory was met.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court abused its discretion by refusing to take judicial notice of various prior records/transcripts	Rome: He submitted requests for judicial notice of trial transcript, appellate briefs, prior conviction records, clerk’s record, and other files and contends the court should have noticed them	State: Requests were overbroad, vague, and failed to identify specific adjudicative facts or portions of records as required by former I.R.E. 201(d)	Court: No abuse of discretion; requests were fatally unspecific/overbroad and did not supply the necessary information for judicial notice under former Rule 201(d)
Whether trial counsel’s failure to request an accessory-after-the-fact lesser-included instruction constituted ineffective assistance under Strickland	Rome: Counsel later said he could have requested that instruction; accessory-after-the-fact is a means of aiding-and-abetting and thus a lesser-included offense, so failure to request was deficient	State: Accessory-after-the-fact is a separate offense with elements not subsumed by aiding-and-abetting; requesting it could expose defendant to additional liability; Rome also failed to supply charging documents to support a pleading-theory claim	Court: Affirmed—accessory-after-the-fact is not a lesser-included offense under the statutory theory; the record was insufficient to show the pleading theory was met, so no error in denying relief

State v. Rome, 160 Idaho 40 (Ct. App. 2016) (direct-appeal decision upholding conviction)
Spirit Ridge Mineral Springs, LLC v. Franklin Cnty., 157 Idaho 424 (Idaho 2014) (bench-trial involuntary dismissal standard)
Taylor v. McNichols, 149 Idaho 826 (Idaho 2010) (requirement of particularity for judicial-notice requests)
Fortin v. State, 160 Idaho 437 (Ct. App. 2016) (denial of blanket judicial-notice requests for lack of specificity)
State v. Lemmons, 158 Idaho 971 (Idaho 2015) (definition and use of adjudicative facts for judicial notice)
State v. McIntosh, 160 Idaho 1 (Idaho 2016) (statutory theory for lesser-included offenses)
State v. Curtis, 130 Idaho 522 (Idaho 1997) (pleading and statutory theories for lesser-included offenses)
State v. Randles, 117 Idaho 344 (Idaho 1988) (distinction between accessory after the fact and accomplice liability)
State v. Adamcik, 152 Idaho 445 (Idaho 2012) (mens rea required for accomplice/aiding-and-abetting liability)