State of Idaho v. Chris Tapp

Idaho, Falls criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant who was charged with first-degree murder and justice went to hell.



Early in the morning of June 13, 1996, Angie Dodge was raped and stabbed to death in her apartment in Idaho Falls. On January 7, 1997, twenty-year-old Christopher Tapp voluntarily submitted to police questioning about this crime at the Law Enforcement Building (LEB) in Idaho Falls. Tapp again voluntarily went to the LEB for questioning on January 10. After this interview, Tapp's parents retained private counsel for their son. When Tapp did not appear at the LEB for another scheduled interview on January 11, police officers went to his home to find him. They were informed by Tapp's mother that an attorney had been retained and that Tapp would appear on January 13, with counsel, to answer more questions. Approximately an hour later, the Idaho Falls chief of police arrived at the Tapp home and attempted to convince Tapp's mother to change her mind about her son's refusal to be interviewed without assistance of counsel. She refused. Rather than waiting for a voluntary interview on January 13, law enforcement officials obtained a warrant to arrest Tapp on a charge of accessory to a felony, Idaho Code §§ 18-205, -206, and he was arrested on January 11.

A jury trial ensued, and Tapp was found guilty of first degree murder and rape. The State's case was based almost entirely upon Tapp's confessions to having helped other men rape and murder Dodge; no physical evidence linked Tapp to the crime. At sentencing, the district court rejected the State's request for the death penalty and instead imposed a unified sentence of life plus fifteen years' imprisonment with a thirty-year minimum term for first degree murder and a concurrent unified twenty-year sentence with a ten-year minimum term for rape.



Tapp was exonerated in 2019.



He was paid $11.7 million in compensation.



See: Murder of Angie Dodge