The Idaho Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a former state legislator convicted of raping an intern in 2021.
Former state Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger (R-Lewiston) appealed his conviction from 2022, claiming a district court judge violated his constitutional right to confront his accuser in open court.
Von Ehlinger’s victim, who was 19 at the time he raped her, briefly testified during the trial, but eventually fled the courtroom saying, “I can’t do this.”
Instead, the prosecution largely relied on testimony from a forensic nurse who treated the victim known as J.V. She offered testimony recounting the victim said that von Ehlinger “forced his penis into [J.V.’s] mouth.”
Von Ehlinger’s defense attorney, Jon Cox, objected to parts of the nurse’s testimony at the time, but not on constitutional grounds. Those objections came a day later.
Cox also chose not to move for a mistrial after J.V. bolted from the stand. Prosecutors can retry a case when a mistrial is declared, but von Ehlinger would’ve been free had the jury found him not guilty.
“There is no doubt that J.V.’s departure weakened the State’s case against Von Ehlinger,” wrote Justice Gregory Moeller.
However, Moeller wrote Cox may have found it to be “a wise strategy to take advantage of that fact and see the trial through without the complaining witness’s testimony, while allowing for a potentially fundamental error to remain in the record to be appealed at another time, if necessary.”
Justices unanimously rejected the former lawmaker’s appeal, writing that there’s no evidence showing Cox was incompetent or that his decisions weren’t strategic.
“Whether such a tactic was wise or misguided is not for us to say in this appeal,” Moeller wrote.
Justices also wrote there was sufficient evidence presented at trial for a jury to reach a guilty verdict in the case.
Von Ehlinger is currently serving a minimum eight-year sentence, which could stretch as long as 20 years.
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