Full Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO Docket No. 51631 TRACY TUCKER, JASON SHARP, NAOMI ) MORLEY, and BILLY CHAPPELL, on behalf ) of themselves and all others similarly situated, ) ) Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) ) v. ) Boise, August 2025 Term ) STATE OF IDAHO; DARRELL BOLZ, ) Opinion Filed: October 28, 2026 ANGELA BARKELL, REP. DAVID ) CANNON, HON. LINDA COPPLE TROUT, ) Melanie Gagnepain, Clerk DAN DINNING, BEN ANDERSEN, SEN. ) MELISSA WINTROW, and ERIC ) LEHTINEN, in their official capacities as ) members of the Idaho State Public Defense ) Commission, ) ) Defendants-Respondents. ) Appeal from the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District, State of Idaho, Ada County. Samuel A. Hoagland, District Judge. The order of the district court is affirmed. American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, Boise; Hogan Lovells Cadwalader US LLP, Washington, DC; Ali & Lockwood LLP, Washington, DC; American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York; for Appellants. Joe Cavanaugh argued. Raúl R. Labrador, Idaho Attorney General, Boise; Scanlan Griffiths + Aldridge as Special Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for Respondents. Joseph M. Aldridge argued. Parsons, Behle & Latimer as Special Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for Respondents Eric Lehtinen and Ben Anderson. _____________________ BRODY, Chief Justice. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 13 of the Idaho Constitution guarantee an indigent criminal defendant the right to counsel at public expense. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344 (1963); State v. Montroy, 37 Idaho 684, 690, 217 P. 611, 614 (1923). For well over a decade, Idaho’s public defense system has struggled to meet that 1 guarantee. In 2015, Plaintiffs initiated this lawsuit to compel the State to fulfill its constitutional obligation, contending Idaho’s county-based system of public defense failed to provide adequate legal representation at key junctures. Over time, the Idaho Legislature has made a number of changes to that system. Critically, during the 2022 and 2023 legislative sessions, the Idaho Legislature took significant steps to relieve Idaho’s forty-four counties of the responsibility for funding indigent public defense services and created a centralized Office of the State Public Defender to coordinate the delivery of public defense services statewide through a single funding source from the state treasury. See generally State Public Defender Act, ch. 220, §1, 2023 Idaho Sess. Laws 662, 662–67; Act of Mar. 29, 2022, ch. 318, §§ 55–58, 2022 Idaho Sess. Laws 1011, 1029–30. After two prior appeals to this Court, see Tucker v. State (Tucker I), 162 Idaho 11, 394 P.3d 54 (2017); Tucker v. State (Tucker II), 168 Idaho 570, 484 P.3d 851 (2021), and following the legislature’s enactment of the State Public Defender Act, the district court entered an order enjoining the State from ever returning to the prior public defense structures based on its “serious concerns” arising from Plaintiffs’ evidence of systemic violations of the right to counsel under those legacy systems. The district court otherwise dismissed the case, declining to enjoin—or to impose its own competing plan for reform on—the newly established, state-based public defense system. In this third appeal, Plaintiffs contend the district court erred in concluding that the new system is unlikely to perpetuate the systemic constitutional violations of its predecessor and in declining to devise and enforce its own remedial plan. We are unpersuaded. We hold that a district court properly exercises its remedial discretion when it declines to issue injunctive relief because doing so would conflict with, or duplicate the remedial efforts of, a coordinate branch of government. At the same time, we reiterate that empty promises will not suffice to justify a court’s staying its hand when a plaintiff is entitled to relief. In such cases, the defendant bears a heavy burden. When that burden is met—when it is apparent that the relief sought will be provided by the political branches—it is prudent for courts to refrain from interfering out of respect for the Idaho Constitution’s allocation of authority among the three branches of government. Ultimately, however, this determination rests within the district court’s sound exercise of remedial discretion. Finding no abuse of that discretion here, we affirm. 2 I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND This case has a long and complex history, much of which this Court has already detailed in earlier opinions. See Tucker v. State (Tucker I), 162 Idaho 11, 394 P.3d 54 (2017); Tucker v. State (Tucker II), 168 Idaho 570, 484 P.3d 851 (2021). For purposes of this appeal, we recount only those factual and procedural milestones necessary to resolve the remedial question now before us. Idaho historically relied on each of its forty‑four counties to provide legal representation to indigent criminal defendants. I.C. § 19-859 (repealed 2023). Under this county-based scheme, the counties could choose to establish a county public defender’s office, create a joint public defender’s office with other counties, or contract with either an existing public defender’s office or private attorneys to provide public defense services. See id. This flexibility meant that counties were also responsible for funding whatever model they adopted. I.C. § 19-862 (repealed 2023). In January 2010, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) authored a report concluding that Idaho’s county-based public defense system failed to meet the State’s obligation to provide representation to indigent criminal defendants consistent with the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In response to the NLADA report, the legislature created the Idaho State Public Defense Commission in 2014. See Idaho Public Defense Act, ch. 247, § 2, 2014 Idaho Sess. Laws 616, 617. The legislature tasked the Commission with promulgating standards for indigent public defense across the state and, two years later, with supplementing county funding for those services with state grant funding. Id. § 3, at 618; Act of Mar. 24, 2016, ch. 195, § 1, 2014 Idaho Sess. Laws 544, 546–47. This marked Idaho’s transition from a purely county-based public defense structure to a state-assisted structure. Seven years later, following Plaintiffs’ second appeal to this Court, see Tucker II, 168 Idaho 570, 484 P.3d 851, the legislature took the first step toward transitioning to an entirely state-based public defense system. During the 2022 legislative session, it enacted a property tax package that shifted the financial burden for indigent public defense services exclusively from Idaho’s counties to the state. Act of Mar. 29, 2022, ch. 318, § 55, 2022 Idaho Sess. Laws 1011, 1029. The legislature also expressed its intent to establish a state-based public defense system at the conclusion of the 2023 legislative session. Id. § 1, at 1012. It followed through on that commitment the following year by enacting the State Public Defender Act (“SPDA”). See generally ch. 220, § 1, 2023 Idaho Sess. Laws 660, 662–67. 3 In the SPDA, the legislature created the Office of the State Public Defender, a self- governing executive agency led by the State Public Defender and supported by District Public Defenders in each judicial district. Id. § 1, at 662–64. The State Public Defender is responsible for staffing, supervising, and providing the infrastructure necessary to deliver indigent public defense services statewide. Id. § 1, at 663–64. These responsibilities include, among others, implementing American Bar Association standards governing indigent defense—particularly with respect to caseloads—providing continuing legal education to defense attorneys, establishing uniform recordkeeping policies, and adopting standardized contracts and policies for engaging contract defense counsel. Id. At the time the State filed its brief in this appeal, it noted that “the State Public Defender ha[d] been in charge of indigent defense in Idaho for less than two months.” While all of these legislative reforms were unfolding, Plaintiffs attempted to expand this action against the State and several state officials by seeking to certify a class action in district court on claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and Article I, Section 13 of the Idaho Constitution. Plaintiffs alleged that “the State provides inadequate funding, training, and supervision to support the delivery of indigent defense services” across Idaho. They identified several “constitutional and statutory” deficiencies “linked to the State’s longstanding and ongoing failure to provide the funding, supervision, and training necessary to meet its legal obligations,” including excessive caseloads; inadequate support staff, including investigators and experts; a lack of public defender independence from political and judicial influence; and the inability to facilitate confidential communication between public defenders and defendants, among others. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief directing the State to cease the alleged systemic violations of indigent defendants’ rights and to submit to the court “an implementation and internal monitoring plan” to improve public defense services. They also requested that the court appoint “an independent, external monitor to oversee and evaluate the State’s public defense system.” Initially, the district court dismissed the complaint, ruling that Plaintiffs’ claims were not justiciable based on standing, ripeness, and separation of powers. Tucker I, 162 Idaho at 19, 394 P.3d at 61. On appeal, this Court affirmed the dismissal of the claims against the Governor but reversed in part, holding that the remaining claims could proceed against the State. Id. at 30, 394 P.3d at 73. On remand, Plaintiffs and the State filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Tucker 4 II, 168 Idaho at 573, 484 P.3d at 854. The district court denied both motions and sua sponte authorized a permissive appeal to this Court to determine the standard applicable “in a lawsuit challenging the public defense system for the State of Idaho” and “the burden of the respective parties going forward.” Id. We granted the appeal and explained that, to succeed on their constitutional challenge, Plaintiffs must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Idaho’s public defense system suffers from “widespread, persistent structural deficiencies” that likely will result in denials of counsel at critical stages: To obtain declaratory or injunctive relief, Plaintiffs must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Idaho’s public defense system suffers from widespread, persistent structural deficiencies that likely will result in indigent defendants suffering actual or constructive denials of counsel at critical stages of criminal proceedings. Id. at 584–85, 484 P.3d at 865–66. We further explained that this standard must be applied consistently with the traditional requirements for injunctive relief: “the likelihood of substantial and immediate irreparable injury, and the inadequacy of remedies at law.” Id. at 585, 484 P.3d at 866. Following remand in Tucker II, and shortly after enactment of the SPDA, the State moved to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Idaho Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). The State argued that the case was no longer justiciable because the SPDA dissolved the Public Defense Commission and transferred its responsibilities to the newly created Office of the State Public Defender. In its view, because the challenged county-based system no longer existed, any declaratory or injunctive relief would amount to an advisory opinion regarding the adequacy of the new state-wide system. The State also argued that Plaintiffs lacked standing because they could not demonstrate an actual or imminent injury under the SPDA and that their claims had been redressed by the Idaho Legislature’s statutory reforms, including increased funding, training standards, and attorney workload limits. The parties also filed cross-motions for summary judgment, each supported by extensive, competing expert declarations and reports. Plaintiffs’ motion sought three forms of relief. First, they requested findings of fact establishing that no genuine dispute existed regarding deficiencies in Idaho’s public defense system, including excessive caseloads and inadequate access to necessary support services. Second, they sought a declaratory judgment that these deficiencies “create a substantial risk that indigent defendants in Idaho will be actually or constructively denied counsel,” rendering the system unconstitutional. Third, they asked the court to require the State to submit, 5 within two years, a detailed remedial plan, subject to oversight by an independent, court-appointed monitor. The State, in turn, argued that Plaintiffs could not demonstrate a substantial risk of future irreparable harm because the SPDA would fundamentally change how indigent defense services are provided in Idaho beginning in October 2024. It criticized Plaintiffs for relying on a “thirty- thousand-foot view” based primarily on caseload statistics. The State further contended that summary judgment was appropriate because, in the years since this Court ruled in Tucker I that the Public Defense Commission’s alleged failures to promulgate rules governing training and caseload standards satisfied redressability standards, “the landscape of Idaho’s public defense system [had] changed significantly.” It emphasized that the Commission had since promulgated rules governing attorney training and caseloads and that the legislature had initiated a comprehensive overhaul of the system, including increased funding through the SPDA. In the State’s view, Plaintiffs’ evidence failed to account for these ongoing reforms. In February 2024, the district court issued an amended memorandum decision and order. It granted Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment in part, concluding Idaho’s public defense system “as it existed when summary judgment was sought” raised “serious concerns” regarding the adequacy of the prior county-based system in light of Plaintiffs’ evidence. However, the court also determined that the State had met its burden of showing that future harm was unlikely under the new state-based system given “the changes made by the State since the Second Amended Complaint was filed.” The district court further concluded that imposing its own remedial plan could “duplicate the State’s efforts and waste finite public resources,” “invite intergovernmental confusion and conflict,” or “delay the efforts already underway.” It determined that the “substantial efforts” of the legislative and executive branches to reform public defense services informed its exercise of remedial discretion and supported its conclusion that further litigation had become moot and that additional relief would be unnecessary, if not counterproductive. Accordingly, the district court enjoined the State from “reviv[ing] the old county-based system in any materially similar form” but otherwise granted the State’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss on prudential mootness grounds. This appeal followed. 6 II. STANDARD OF REVIEW When a district court dismisses on prudential mootness grounds, it effectively declines to issue injunctive relief because the defendant has suitably demonstrated that there no longer remains any “further threat of injury necessitating an injunction.” O’Boskey v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n of Boise, 112 Idaho 1002, 1007, 739 P.2d 301, 306 (1987); accord Winzler v. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., 681 F.3d 1208, 1210 (10th Cir. 2012). The decision to do so springs from the court’s remedial discretion as a court sitting in equity. Conley v. Whittlesey, 133 Idaho 265, 273, 985 P.2d 1127, 1135 (1999) (“The granting or refusal of an injunction is a matter resting largely in the trial court’s discretion.” (citations omitted)). “The court which is to exercise the discretion is the trial court and not the appellate court, and an appellate court will not interfere absent a manifest abuse of discretion.” Harris v. Cassia County, 106 Idaho 513, 517, 681 P.2d 988, 992 (1984). We review an alleged abuse of the district court’s remedial discretion under a “multi-tiered inquiry” which asks “[w]hether the [district] court: (1) correctly perceived the issue as one of discretion; (2) acted within the outer boundaries of its discretion; (3) acted consistently with the legal standards applicable to the specific choices available to it; and (4) reached its decision by the exercise of reason.” Lunneborg v. My Fun Life, 163 Idaho 856, 863, 421 P.3d 187, 194 (2018) (citation omitted). III. ANALYSIS A. The district court erred by granting the State’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion, but its error was not prejudicial because the court’s ruling on prudential mootness was dispositive. We begin by addressing the district court’s disposition of this case through the State’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Idaho Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 12(b)(1) permits a defendant to move to dismiss an action on the ground that the court lacks subject‑matter jurisdiction. I.R.C.P. 12(b)(1). Such a motion challenges the court’s authority to “hear and determine cases” of the kind before it. See State v. Rogers, 140 Idaho 223, 228, 91 P.3d 1127, 1132 (2004). Because justiciability doctrines likewise evaluate “appropriate or suitable occasions for adjudication by a court,” State v. Philip Morris, Inc., 158 Idaho 874, 881, 354 P.3d 187, 194 (2015), we held in Tucker v. State (Tucker I) that Rule 12(b)(1) is the proper procedural vehicle to contest justiciability, 162 Idaho 11, 18, 394 P.3d 54, 61 (2017). Mootness is a justiciability doctrine. “A case becomes moot when the issues presented are no longer live or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.” Farrell v. Whiteman, 146 Idaho 604, 610, 200 P.3d 1153, 1159 (2009) (citing Idaho Schs. for Equal Educ. Opportunity 7 v. Idaho State Bd. of Educ., 128 Idaho 276, 281, 912 P.2d 644, 649 (1996)). Put differently, mootness asks whether “an intervening circumstance has deprived the plaintiff of a personal stake in the outcome of the lawsuit.” Moore v. Harper, 600 U.S. 1, 14 (2023) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Like any other assertion that a case is non-justiciable, a defendant should raise a mootness challenge in a Rule 12(b)(1) motion. See Tucker I, 162 Idaho at 18, 392 P.3d at 61. The district court expressly acknowledged that this case “remain[s] a live controversy” and that its task was not to decide whether jurisdiction persisted, but to decide whether issuing injunctive relief remained, in its words, “the prudent choice,” in light of “policy changes and remedial promises” made by the Idaho Legislature and by the newly created Office of the State Public Defender. Indeed, the district court made a merits determination, partially granting Plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion and further granting limited injunctive relief—prohibiting the State from returning to the prior county‑based or state‑assisted delivery models—before “otherwise” dismissing the case under the State’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion. It did so not because jurisdiction was lacking, but because “prudence and comity for coordinate branches of government counsel[ed]” withholding further relief. (Quoting Chamber of Com. v. U.S. Dep’t of Energy, 627 F.2d 289, 291 (D.C. Cir. 1980)). In short, the district court granted dismissal on prudential mootness grounds rather than on a justiciability (mootness) theory cognizable under Rule 12(b)(1). A Rule 12(b)(1) motion is not the proper vehicle for a dismissal premised on prudential mootness. Rule 12(b)(1) governs the court’s power to adjudicate; prudential mootness, by contrast, concerns the court’s remedial discretion as a court of equity—its authority to “mould each decree to the necessities of the particular case,” and its “concomitant power to deny relief altogether unless the moving party can satisfy the court that relief is needed.” Winzler v. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., 681 F.3d 1208, 1210 (10th Cir. 2012). The district court therefore conflated mootness as a justiciability doctrine with prudential mootness as a remedial one. Even so, the district court’s misstep does not require reversal. As we explain below, the district court’s prudential mootness analysis was dispositive. Once the district court determined that injunctive relief against the newly implemented state‑based public defense system would be imprudent—given the structural reforms underway and its finding that future systemic harm was unlikely—dismissal was inevitable. That the district court embedded this determination within a Rule 12(b)(1) disposition instead of under the summary judgment motion is therefore harmless 8 error that we disregard on appeal. See I.R.C.P. 61 (“At every stage of the proceeding, the court must disregard all errors and defects that do not affect any party’s substantial rights.”); see also Hernandez-Santiago v. Ecolab, Inc., 397 F.3d 30, 34 (1st Cir. 2005) (holding trial court erred in dismissing case on the merits on a 12(b)(1) motion but that appellate court “could still affirm if dismissal of the complaint would be the obvious result of a remand.”). B. The district court properly exercised its remedial discretion in dismissing the case on prudential mootness grounds. Looking past the district court’s inconsequential procedural error, we treat its dismissal as an exercise of its remedial discretion informed by the doctrine of prudential mootness, and we proceed to review its decision under the four‑part abuse‑of‑discretion inquiry. See Martel v. Bulotti, 138 Idaho 451, 453, 65 P.3d 192, 194 (2003) (“This Court may uphold decisions on alternate grounds from those stated in the findings of fact and conclusions of law on appeal.” (citations omitted)). We conclude that the district court’s dismissal—based on its determination that the legislature has already provided Plaintiffs with the relief they seek through enactment of the SPDA—was not an abuse of discretion. The first step in an abuse-of-discretion inquiry is to determine whether the district court understood that the issue before it was one appealing to its discretion. Lunneborg v. My Fun Life, 163 Idaho 856, 863, 421 P.3d 187, 194 (2018). In the present case, it is apparent that the district court understood it was being asked to exercise its remedial discretion to fashion appropriate relief. Despite its procedurally incorrect resolution of the remedial question through a Rule 12(b)(1) motion, the district court cited Miller v. Ririe Joint School District No. 252, 132 Idaho 385, 973 P.2d 156 (1999), for the proposition that “whether to grant equitable relief, including injunctive and declaratory, is discretionary.” And in exercising that discretion it relied on Idaho and federal cases explaining that a court may exercise its remedial discretion to decline to award injunctive relief when “prudence and comity for coordinate branches of government counsel [the] [c]ourt to stay its hand and withhold the relief that it has the power to grant.” (Quoting Chamber of Com. v. U.S. Dep’t of Energy, 627 F.2d 289, 291 (D.C. Cir. 1980)). Accordingly, it is sufficiently clear that the district court correctly perceived the issue before it as one implicating its discretionary remedial powers as a court sitting in equity. Next, the abuse of discretion inquiry turns to whether the district court “acted within the outer boundaries of its discretion.” Lunneborg, 163 Idaho at 863, 421 P.3d at 194. It is practically a matter of course that a district court sitting in equity is “granted broad discretion in fashioning 9 equitable relief.” Id. at 867, 421 P.3d at 198 (citing Rowe v. Burrup, 95 Idaho 747, 750, 518 P.2d 1386, 1389 (1974)). Broad remedial discretion acknowledges that “men’s actions are so diverse and infinite, that it is impossible to make any general law which may aptly meet with every particular act, and not fail in some circumstances,” The Earl of Oxford’s Case in Chancery, 21 Eng. Rep. 485, 486 (1615), and is intrinsic to the Anglo-American legal tradition, see Douglas Laycock, The Triumph of Equity, 56 L. and Contemp. Probs. 53, 71–73 (1993). Occasionally, a court’s remedial discretion is guided by statute. E.g., Chambers v. Thomas, 123 Idaho 69, 73, 844 P.2d 698, 702 (1992) (affirming the trial court’s equitable redemption procedure because it was consistent with statute). But in the absence of statutory guidance, as in the present case, this Court has held that injunctive relief must be “no broader than necessary to cure the effects of the harm caused.” Snap! Mobile, Inc., v. Vertical Raise, LLC, 173 Idaho 499, 513, 544 P.3d 714, 728 (2024) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). We are persuaded that the district court’s relief was no broader than necessary and therefore fell within the outer bounds of its remedial discretion. Plaintiffs, in fact, appear to fault the district court for not fashioning broader relief; they essentially urge this Court to hold that the district court should have devised and enforced its own plan of reform on the new, state-based public defense enterprise, in addition to enjoining the State’s return to the county‑based and county‑based state‑assisted structures. But such relief would have been inconsistent with the district court’s ruling on Plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion, in which it implicitly acknowledged the constitutional defects of the legacy public defense structures. Based on the Plaintiffs’ evidence, the district court found that the prior structures failed to provide indigent criminal defendants with representation consistent with the federal and Idaho Constitutions, expressing “serious concerns” about the “adequacy” of those systems. At the same time, the district court concluded that the State had met its “heavy” burden of showing that, prospectively, these inadequacies were unlikely to persist under the new state‑based system created by the legislature through the SPDA. O’Boskey v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n of Boise, 112 Idaho 1002, 1007, 739 P.2d 301, 306 (1987). Accordingly, the district court’s injunctive relief reflected its findings on the merits: it enjoined the State from returning to the prior structures, which Plaintiffs had shown to be constitutionally deficient, while “staying its hand” to allow the State to implement the reformed public defense system without judicial interference. See Chamber of Com., 627 F.2d at 291. Because the district court’s injunction was “no broader than necessary 10 to cure the effects of the harm” it identified, Snap!, 173 Idaho at 513, 544 P.3d at 728 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted), we conclude that the district court “acted within the outer boundaries of its discretion” in fashioning the relief it did, Lunneborg, 163 Idaho at 863, 421 P.3d at 194. At the third step of an abuse-of-discretion analysis, we consider whether the district court “acted consistently with the legal standards applicable to the specific choices available to it.” Lunneborg, 163 Idaho at 863, 421 P.3d at 194. In Tucker II, this Court defined the Plaintiffs’ burden to obtain declaratory or injunctive relief against the State: Plaintiffs must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Idaho’s public defense system suffers from widespread, persistent structural deficiencies that likely will result in indigent defendants suffering actual or constructive denials of counsel at critical stages of criminal proceedings. 168 Idaho 570, 584–85, 484 P.3d 851, 865–66 (2021). Once Plaintiffs satisfy this burden, the State may avoid or limit injunctive relief only by carrying the “heavy” burden of showing that the challenged conduct has ceased and that “there is no reasonable expectation” it will recur. O’Boskey, 112 Idaho at 1007, 739 P.2d at 306 (quoting United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 633 (1953)). The Plaintiffs have spent much of this appeal arguing that the State has no opportunity to preclude or narrow the scope of injunctive relief once the Plaintiffs have satisfied this showing because, in their view, “prudential mootness has no place in Idaho jurisprudence.” They appear to read the rule in O’Boskey as announcing a standard for when a defendant may render a case nonjusticiable rather than merely unsuitable for injunctive relief. Plaintiffs further argue that even if O’Boskey does countenance the remedy-focused prudential mootness doctrine, the State has not met its heavy burden on the record in this case. We disagree on both scores. First, O’Boskey plainly recognizes that an Idaho court sitting in equity has the remedial discretion to deny injunctive relief when a defendant makes a convincing showing that it is unlikely to repeat the complained of conduct. Id. When the defendant makes such a showing, we might term the case “prudentially” or “remedially” moot, or we might simply recognize that the defendant has convincingly appealed to the district court’s remedial discretion to preclude or narrow the scope of an injunction. Whatever term we assign to this concept, O’Boskey should not be mistaken for a case about justiciability. 11 In O’Boskey, the crux of the appellant’s claim of error on appeal was that the district court erred in enjoining it from enforcing the contractual provision at issue because “there was no further threat of injury necessitating an injunction.” 112 Idaho at 1007, 739 P.2d at 306. Neither party argued that the district court lacked the power to hear the case altogether, and we reviewed the appellant’s claim of error under an abuse-of-discretion standard, which we apply to a district court’s exercise of remedial discretion. Id. at 1005, 1007, 739 P.2d at 304, 306. We ultimately affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the appellant had failed to convincingly demonstrate that its attempts to enforce the contractual provision had come to an end for good. Id. at 1008, 739 P.3d at 307. Put simply, like the present case, O’Boskey concerns the district court’s decision to issue (or not issue) injunctive relief, not its power to decide the case. Tellingly, our holding in O’Boskey relies on the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629 (1953). Much like O’Boskey, W. T. Grant says nothing about a federal court’s power to hear the case. See id. at 632 (“Both sides agree to the abstract proposition that voluntary cessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not deprive the tribunal of power to hear and determine the case, i.e., does not make the case moot.”). Instead, the rule W. T. Grant announces pertains to the trial court’s exercise of remedial discretion, more specifically, the circumstances under which it is appropriate for a court to refrain from enjoining a defendant who foreswears inflicting further harm on the plaintiff. Id. at 633. While W. T. Grant interchangeably uses the term “moot” to refer to both justiciability and remedial discretion, it is decidedly not a case about justiciability. Id. (observing that the defendants’ “profession” that illegal “interlocks” no longer existed “does not suffice to make a case moot” but “is one of the factors to be considered in determining the appropriateness of granting an injunction against the now- discontinued acts.”). The Plaintiffs attempt to obscure this reality by insisting remedial mootness is “in tension” with this Court’s “constitutional mootness jurisprudence.” Not so. Again, whether a case is justiciable is entirely separate from whether a court sitting in equity will provide Plaintiffs the injunctive relief they seek. Relying on Nelson v. Marshall, 94 Idaho 726, 728–29, 497 P.2d 47, 49– 50 (1972), and Idaho Schools for Equal Education Opportunity ex rel. Eikum v. Idaho State Board of Education ex rel. Mossman, 128 Idaho 276, 282, 912 P.2d 644, 650 (1996) (“ISEEO II”), the Plaintiffs correctly note that this Court has typically taken a skeptical view of strategic efforts by a defendant to “moot” a case. Yet these cases are entirely inapt because they speak to mootness as 12 a justiciability concept rather than a remedial one. In the present case, the district court did not hold that it lacked the power to decide the case. To the contrary, it did decide the case and in doing so partially granted Plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion and prayer for relief, enjoining the state from returning to the former county-based and county-based, state-assisted structures. The district court’s decision to “otherwise” dismiss the case, denying Plaintiffs’ relief against the new, state- based structure, stems from its remedial discretion, not from its obligation to dismiss a non- justiciable case. By contrast, ISEEO II and Nelson exclusively concern dismissals based on non- justiciability (mootness). These cases offer no insight on the remedial question at issue here. If anything, remedial mootness is a natural corollary to an equity court’s broad discretion to “mould each decree to the necessities of the case.” Hetch Co. v. Bowles, 321 U.S. 321, 329 (1944). While the term may suggest novelty, it is more accurately understood as a descriptive label for a familiar exercise of equitable discretion. To suggest that this Court needed to have expressly “recognized” remedial mootness in name before a district court can consider legislatively enacted policy changes in evaluating the propriety of injunctive relief appears to us inconsistent with the long history of equity practice. See Laycock, supra, at 71; W. T. Grant, 345 U.S. at 633 (“The chancellor’s decision is based on all the circumstances; his discretion is necessarily broad . . . .”). Second, it is not the role of this Court to reweigh the evidence to determine if harm is likely under the new state-based public defense system. That is a question of fact that we leave to the district court to make. See Litster Frost Injury Laws. v. Idaho Injury Law Grp., PLLC, 171 Idaho 1, 16, 518 P.3d 1, 16 (2022) (“What will do equity in a particular case necessarily involves questions of fact.”). So long as the district court’s conclusions are supported by substantial and competent evidence in the record—which, as we explain, is true in the present case—we will not disturb the district court’s findings of fact on appeal. Gem State Roofing, Inc. v. United Components, Inc., 168 Idaho 820, 828–29, 488 P.3d 488, 496–97 (2021). Applying the standards announced in Tucker II and O’Boskey, the district court appeared to accept the allegations Plaintiffs made against the county‑based and county‑based, state‑assisted systems as true, granting in part Plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion and noting its “serious concerns” over the constitutionality of those systems arising from Plaintiffs’ evidence. However, it also determined that continued violations of indigent defendants’ constitutional rights were unlikely under the new, state‑based system. The State had eliminated the prior systems and adopted a centralized, state‑based public defense enterprise in their place; that new system is headed by an 13 experienced public defense attorney and guided by statutorily adopted public defense practice standards promulgated by the American Bar Association. Moreover, the SPD is statutorily obligated to implement workload standards, training and continuing legal education requirements, and appropriate staffing levels for attorneys, experts, investigators, and other professionals across the state. See generally State Public Defender Act, ch. 220, §1, 2023 Idaho Sess. Laws 662, 663– 64. And the legislature has provided a consolidated funding stream for public defense to facilitate confidential meeting space and the hiring and retention of attorneys. From this, the district court concluded, “[t]hese economies of scale will improve efficiencies and overall quality of services, not reduce efficiencies and quality.” It further concluded that any concerns about improper political and judicial influence on Idaho’s public defense enterprise has been mitigated because the new SPD “maintained independence in his former role as State Appellate Public Defender, as did the attorneys working under him.” As the district court recognized, these reforms are far from “minor.” They reflect a deliberate effort by the Idaho Legislature to comprehensively redesign the State’s delivery of indigent public defense services to prevent systemic denials of the right to counsel. Cf. O’Boskey, 112 Idaho at 1007, 739 P.2d at 306 (noting the district court granted injunctive relief because, inter alia, defendant “gave no indication” that it would refrain from unlawfully enforcing contractual provision against potential class members). Nor are the changes the product of an eleventh‑hour “protestation of repentance and reform.” Cf. id. (noting that the district court granted injunctive relief despite an affidavit from a bank executive offered after class certification stating that the bank would no longer enforce provision against potential class members). Rather, the legislature developed the new state-based system over two legislative sessions and the Executive continues to implement the SPDA’s directives. It is hardly an abuse of the district court’s discretion to conclude, based on this evidence, that the remedial commitments of a coordinate branch of government “bear special gravity.” See Winzler, 681 F.3d at 1211. This is not a case in which a private actor—or even a government actor exercising discretionary authority—simply promises to do better. It is one in which the people’s elected representatives have comprehensively restructured a public institution after years of deliberation and have imposed clear statutory mandates to ensure the SPDA’s implementation. Cf. id. (holding dismissal on prudential mootness grounds was appropriate because defendant had