Whether the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause requires a scienter element for felonies that are not public welfare offenses and carry serious penalties

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Without any requirement or proof of scienter, Petitioner was convicted of unlawful possession of a moose carcass out of season, a felony under Idaho law. Yet the state never showed that he knew that the animal, which he had not killed, had been sot out of season or that the person collecting the carcass lacked a tag authorizing possession. Thus the state failed to show that he knew he unlawfully possessed the carcass. He raised and extensively briefed a 14th Amendment due process challenge to the lack of a requirement and proof of scienter before the Idaho Supreme Court, but that court refused to rule on the issue by literally ignoring five pages of his brief and claiming the issue was not sufficiently raised. This wholly inadequate ground for refusing to reach a constitutional issue is itself a due process violation under the 14th Amendment. The questions presented by this petition are: 1. Whether the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause requires a scienter element for felonies that are not public welfare offenses and carry serious penalties, as at least three federal circuits and many state supreme courts have recognized, or whether requiring the inclusion of scienter is merely a rule of construction, as three federal circuit courts and one state supreme court have held? 2. Whether a_ criminal’ defendant is unconstitutionally denied the opportunity to be heard under the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause when a court refuses to reach an argument he has extensively briefed because the court erroneously concludes he has not fairly raised the argument?