Case Title: Kruzich v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1990-10-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
Kruzich v. State1990 WY 108800 P.2d 489Case Number: 90-15Decided: 10/05/1990Supreme Court of Wyoming
CARL KRUZICH, 

APPELLANT 
(DEFENDANT),

v.

THE STATE OF 
WYOMING,

 APPELLEE 
(PLAINTIFF).

Appeal from the District 
Court, Natrona County, Harry E. Leimback, J.

Frank R. 
Chapman, Casper, for appellant.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., John W. Renneisen, Deputy Atty. Gen., Karen A. Byrne and Paul S. 
Rehurek, Sr. Asst. Attys. Gen., Cheyenne, for 
appellee.

Before 
URBIGKIT, C.J., and THOMAS, CARDINE, MACY and GOLDEN, 
JJ.

GOLDEN, 
Justice.

[¶1]      Appellant Carl 
Kruzich appeals from the judgment and sentence of the district court placing him 
on probation for two years. He pled guilty to the crime of delivery of a 
controlled substance in violation of W.S. 35-7-1031 (June 1988 Repl.) and at 
sentencing, asked that he be treated as a first offender under W.S. 7-13-301 
(June 1987 Repl.). The prosecutor would not agree to such treatment for Kruzich 
and the district court found that, as mandated in the statute, it could not 
employ that sentencing provision without the consent of the state. The district 
court imposed sentence. We have already addressed the issues raised by Kruzich 
in several recent cases and, based on those decisions, we will affirm the 
district court.

[¶2]      Kruzich poses 
these issues:

I. Wyoming statute § 
7-13-301 violates the constitutional requirement of separation of powers by 
requiring prosecutorial consent to the trial court's decision as to 
sentencing.

II. The prosecutor's 
refusal to consent to sentencing under § 7-13-301, W.S. (1985), was an arbitrary 
abuse of discretion and therefore violated Article 1, § 2, and Article 1, § 7, 
of the Wyoming Constitution.

[¶3]      Kruzich was 
charged with one count of delivering a controlled substance, methamphetamine, 
and conspiracy to deliver that same substance. Both charges arose out of the 
same incident wherein Kruzich was called by a friend who asked him if he would 
obtain a gram of methamphetamine for someone else. He did so, and the someone 
else to whom he sold it was an undercover police agent. He was charged with 
delivery for the actual delivery and conspiracy for conspiring with his friend 
to deliver that substance.

[¶4]      After initially 
pleading not guilty, Kruzich entered into a plea bargain. In exchange for his 
plea of guilt to the delivery charge, the state dropped the conspiracy charge 
and agreed that Kruzich should be placed on probation rather than incarcerated. 
All parties understood that the actual sentence rested in the sound discretion 
of the trial court. When counsel for Kruzich asked that his client be treated 
under W.S. 7-13-301, the prosecutor responded that he could not agree to such 
treatment because of the nature of the crime, the nature of the substance 
concerned, and also because W.S. 35-7-1037 (June 1988 Repl.) provides that a 
district court may impose a sentence, much like that provided for in W.S. 
7-13-301, on first time offenders found guilty of possession of a controlled 
substance. Here, Kruzich was found guilty of delivery of the controlled 
substance.

[¶5]      In Billis v. 
State, Nos. 88-250, etc., 800 P.2d 401, 412-427 (Wyo. Oct. 5, 1990), we 
thoroughly discussed the separation of powers issues and that section of the 
opinion is dispositive of Kruzich's first claim of error. The second issue is 
also disposed of in the same decision wherein we held that a prosecutor's 
discretionary decisions will not be interfered with by this court unless the 
exercise of such discretion is based upon suspect factors such as race, 
religion, or other arbitrary classification. Billis, at 435. Kruzich did not 
have the benefit of the cited opinion when he briefed this case, but there is 
nothing in the record to even suggest the existence of any suspect factor. 
Instead, Kruzich's claim of right to W.S. 7-13-301 treatment was predicated upon 
the fact that at thirty-four years of age he had never been charged or convicted 
of any other crime or offense, other than moving traffic violations and that he 
had been steadily employed as a plumber all of his adult 
life.

[¶6]      There is no 
separation of powers violation, and we will not second guess such decisions of 
the prosecutor unless a suspect factor is called to our attention or is evident 
from the record.

[¶7]      
Affirmed.

MACY, J., files a concurring 
opinion.

URBIGKIT, C.J., files a 
dissenting opinion.

MACY, Justice, 
concurring.

[¶8]      I concur simply 
because Billis v. State, 800 P.2d 401 (Wyo. Nos. 88-250, 88-304, 88-310, 88-311, 
88-312 and 89-4, October 5, 1990) is controlling. I am still of the opinion that 
Wyo. Stat. § 7-13-301 (1977) is a separation of powers violation. See my 
dissenting opinion in Billis.

URBIGKIT, Chief Justice, 
dissenting.

[¶9]      Carl Kruzich, age 
thirty-five, regularly employed at the same job for about eight years and a 
single homeowner, accepted an inquiry from a female friend to bring over "some 
speed" (methamphetamine), a controlled substance, "for [her] good friend." He 
did; it was a set up and he was arrested and charged with the felony of delivery 
of a controlled substance. Kruzich accepted a negotiated plea for probation as a 
sentence. His criminal record was clean and his circumstance otherwise justified 
W.S. 7-13-301 treatment in a probationary term conviction vacation. However, 
application of W.S. 7-13-301 was vetoed in this case by the prosecutor on the 
basis that a delivery of a controlled substance case did not justify the 
ameliorative probationary alternative even if simple possession might 
otherwise.

[¶10]   I dissent first from the judicial 
relinquishment of its constitutional responsibility under the separation of 
powers. Secondly, in the thinnest veneer of reason applied as exercised 
discretion but primarily because the social waste in making a person a societal 
non-participant felon will serve no justified reason here. See Billis v. State, 
800 P.2d 401 (Wyo. 1990) (Nos. 88-250, 304, 310, 311, 312 and 89-4, 10/5/90), 
Urbigkit, Chief Justice, dissenting.

[¶11]   If Kruzich does not succeed in 
probation, he deserves what will follow. However, if this bad act is only an 
aberration within a circumstance which might similarly fit a significant 
minority if not a majority of college students, then the burden on his life 
within a citizen's call for responsibilities which should include jury duty and 
voting is surely not justified.

[¶12]   It cannot be said that the issue 
here is a diversion as a normal prosecutorial discretion - it was not. Pursuant 
to a plea bargain, he entered a plea and the plea was accepted. At that point, 
the power of prosecutorial vendetta should be called to a close. See State v. 
Dalglish, 86 N.J. 503, 432 A.2d 74 (1981) and State v. Leonardis, 73 N.J. 360, 
375 A.2d 607 (1977) (Leonardis II), compared with People v. Tenorio, 3 Cal. 3d 89, 89 Cal. Rptr. 249, 251, 473 P.2d 993, 995 (1970) (quoting People v. Sidener, 
58 Cal. 2d 645, 654, 25 Cal. Rptr. 697, 703, 375 P.2d 641, 647 (1962)) in 
statement, "`[c]onstitutional jurisdiction of the court to act cannot be turned 
on and off at the whimsy of either the district attorney or the 
Legislature.'"

[¶13]   After the sentence has been 
judicially adjudicated to apply the same constitutional standard, probation and 
parole as discretional responsibilities are executive functions and cannot 
constitutionally be vested in the judiciary. State v. Wagstaff, 164 Ariz. 485, 
794 P.2d 118 (1990); State v. Berger, 164 Ariz. 426, 793 P.2d 1093 (1990). The 
correlative rule of these Arizona cases continues a defined standard for 
separation of powers in that jurisdiction illogically rejected by the majority 
for application here despite our similar constitutional provisions. We are then 
required to substitute instead of a clear standard the merging and blending 
which then is, in reality, absolutely no standard at all. Cf. United States v. 
Noonan, 906 F.2d 952, 955-56 (3rd Cir. 1990), which provides a valuable 
perspective of the reality of separation of powers. See also Schwartz, Curiouser 
and Curiouser: The Supreme Court's Separation of Powers Wonderland, 65 Notre 
Dame L.Rev. 587 (1990).

[¶14]   If prosecutorial intervention is to 
be interjected into the criminal process, then the process should be stopped 
before entry of a plea in the fashion previously arranged in the other 
correlative Wyoming statute enacted in 1939 and now by current amendment 
interjected as an alternative character of disposition by inclusion as a 
different and separate no plea arrangement in the present W.S. 7-13-301. If the 
prosecution wants discretional participation, it should be applied before the 
plea is made.

[¶15]   Completely separate from 
constitutional and case law underpinnings which cannot be found to provide 
justification, the basic thrust of increasing prosecutorial leverage and 
resulting unnecessary damage to human lives is a quid pro quo that I simply will 
not accept. In this statistic power grab providing increased prosecutorial 
authority and control, unnecessary punitive retribution in loss of citizenship 
rights is damage to the fabric of society for everyone.

[¶16]   If this kind of tough posture 
towards miscreants is to be adopted, then out of the era of permissiveness and 
the generation of greed each person whoever delivered a controlled substance to 
an associate or friend, including present members of professional occupations, 
should be similarly disadvantaged. Unfortunately, so few of us might then be 
left to vote that a democratic society would have no chance of survival. 
Unfortunately, in the war on drugs, I see one standard for wage earners and a 
completely different attitude toward attendees at institutions of higher 
education. In neither case, however, should constitutional reformation and 
rehabilitation be disregarded. The goal should be to benefit and not to 
perpetrate mindless pervasive lifetime harm in no way related to any redeeming 
social virtue.