BOISE, ID – A 62-year-old man convicted of killing two people near Kendrick in 1999 has won an appeal and will see his case remanded to Latah County Second District Court for further proceedings consistent with the Idaho Supreme Court Criminal Opinion that was issued last week. In 2000, Dale Shackleford was convicted by a jury of shooting his ex-wife, 44-year-old Donna Fontaine, and her boyfriend, 59-year-old Fred Palahniuk, to death at a remote property and then burning their bodies in a garage to cover up the murders. He was also convicted of First-Degree Arson, Conspiracy to Commit Arson, and Preparing False Evidence. During his trial, the prosecution contended that Shackelford killed Fontaine to escape a 30-year-to-life sentence on rape charges she had filed against him in Missouri.
Shackleford was sentenced to death for the murders. However, the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that juries, not judges, must hand down death sentences. At a new sentencing hearing in 2011, Shackelford received two fixed life sentences.
Nearly 11 years after his resentencing, Shackelford represented himself on May 2, 2022 and filed a Rule 36 Motion to correct a clerical error in the judgment. Shackelford argued that the written judgment did not accurately reflect the district court’s oral pronouncement of the sentence because the district court did not mention Counts III through VI at the resentencing hearing.
“Shackelford contended that the Judgment should be corrected to order that the consecutive sentences in Counts I and II run concurrently with the sentences in Counts III through VI. The district court denied Shackelford’s Rule 36 motion, determined that the oral pronouncement of sentence was unambiguous, and ruled that the written judgment accurately reflected the oral pronouncement of sentence. We note that the district judge who heard argument on Shackelford’s Rule 36 motion was not the same judge who, many years earlier, orally pronounced Shackelford’s sentence at the resentencing hearing and subsequently signed the Judgment. Shackelford timely filed a notice of appeal,” the Supreme Court Opinion says.
“The only issue in this appeal is whether the district court erred in denying Shackelford’s motion to correct the written Judgment. We hold that the district court erred in denying the motion to correct the Judgment to conform to the oral pronouncement of sentence. When there is a difference between the oral pronouncement of sentence and the written judgment, the oral pronouncement of sentence controls,” the opinion adds.
Counts I and II were for First-Degee Murder, while Count III was for First-Degree Aarson; Count IV was for Conspiracy to Commit First-Degree Murder; Count V was for Conspiracy to Commit First-Degree Arson; and Count VI was for Preparing False Evidence. The district court sentenced Shackelford to death on Counts I and II and ordered the remaining Counts III through VI to be served concurrently.
“For the reasons discussed above, this case is remanded to the district court to correct the Judgment of Conviction on Resentencing to order Counts III through VI to run concurrently with Counts I and II and Counts I and II to run consecutively to each other so that the Judgment conforms to the oral pronouncement of sentence,” the opinion states.
While the Supreme Court agrees with Shackelford that his sentence must be corrected, “this change will not, practically speaking, grant Shackelford any actual relief as he is still serving two consecutive life sentences.”
