Case Title: State ex rel. Smith v. District Court of Seventh Judicial Dist.,

Citation: 

Docket Number: 91-252

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1992-02-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
State ex rel. Smith v. District Court of Seventh Judicial Dist.,1992 WY 25826 P.2d 1122Case Number: 91-252Decided: 02/28/1992Supreme Court of Wyoming
The STATE of Wyoming, ex 
rel. Teresa SMITH, 

Petitioner,

v.

The DISTRICT COURT OF 
SEVENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT and Dan Spangler,

 Seventh Judicial District Court 
Judge,

 Respondents.

Les Bowron, 
Casper, for petitioner.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., Sylvia Lee Hackl, Deputy Atty. Gen., Barbara Boyer, Sr. Asst. Atty. 
Gen., and John Masterson, Asst. Dist. Atty., for respondents.

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

ORDER DENYING PETITION 
FOR WRIT OF PROHIBITION

[¶1]      This matter came 
before the Court upon a Petition for Writ of Prohibition and Defendant's Brief 
in Support of Petition for Writ of Prohibition together with Petitioner's 
Addendum of Exhibits filed herein on behalf of the Petitioner on November 27, 
1991, and Response in Opposition to Petitioner's Petition for Writ of 
Prohibition and Respondent's Brief Opposing Petitioner's Petition for Writ of 
Prohibition, filed herein on behalf of the Respondents on December 19, 1991, and 
the Court, having examined the pleadings together with the exhibits incorporated 
therein, and being fully informed in the premises, finds that the Petition for 
Writ of Prohibition seeks a review in Criminal Action No. 11354, State of 
Wyoming v. Teresa Smith, now pending in the District Court, Seventh Judicial 
District in and for Natrona County, and asserts that the District Court lacks 
jurisdiction on the ground of double jeopardy; the Petition and Brief do not 
identify any action which the law specifically enjoins as a duty of the district 
court or a judge thereof; they do not advise this court as to the absence of any 
adequate remedy at law; it appears that the right of appeal from any final order 
or judgment is an adequate remedy; and the Petition for Writ of Prohibition 
should be denied; and it, therefore, is

[¶2]      ORDERED that the 
Petition for Writ of Prohibition be, and the same hereby is, denied.

URBIGKIT, C.J., 
dissents.

URBIGKIT, Chief Justice, 
dissenting.

[¶3]      What conduct was 
involved in the marijuana possession misdemeanor offense for which petitioner 
had already pled guilty and been sentenced and what conduct will be involved in 
this pending felony charge of conspiracy to deliver marijuana that the State now 
intends to sequentially prosecute? Of course, the general events in each of 
these two sequential prosecutions are identical as originally started with the 
inadvisable utilization of a cordless telephone at petitioner's residence. 
Conversations were casually overheard and then reported. Not apparently 
satisfied with the first sentence after guilty plea, the prosecutor now seeks to 
retry the same course of conduct to extrapolate a more severe punishment by a 
second prosecution with this conspiracy-charged felony.

[¶4]      In my opinion, 
the basic premise of double jeopardy now millenniums old has a real application 
to this case. If the State wanted to go for multiple counts, a sametime 
prosecution should have sufficed. The law, and in particular prosecution of 
alleged criminal conduct has adequate challenges without permitting a breaking 
up into pieces of one course of activity for sequential prosecutions in separate 
proceedings. 

[¶5]      We not only 
demean and diminish the sanctity of Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 11,1 but ignore federal constitution and 
case law supremacy and judicatory reality in attempting to distinguish Grady v. 
Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 110 S. Ct. 2084, 109 L. Ed. 2d 548 (1990). This is an 
identity of conduct criminal case applying re-proof in dual sequential 
prosecutions. Corbin, now only two years old, in following the broad principles 
of Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 103 S. Ct. 673, 74 L. Ed. 2d 535 (1983); 
Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S. Ct. 2912, 53 L. Ed. 2d 1054 (1977); Brown 
v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S. Ct. 2221, 53 L. Ed. 2d 187 (1977); Ashe v. Swenson, 
397 U.S. 436, 90 S. Ct. 1189, 25 L. Ed. 2d 469 (1970); and North Carolina v. 
Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S. Ct. 2072, 23 L. Ed. 2d 656 (1969), is disregarded 
within a nearly identical factual relationship. Furthermore, Corbin should have 
been no stranger to Wyoming law in November 1990 when this case basically 
developed or April 1991 when the criminal charge was made and the plea accepted 
on the controlled substance misdemeanor offense which was originally prosecuted 
to entered sentence.

[¶6]      Double jeopardy 
for this circumstance means in reality one prosecution. That first prosecution 
having passed with original charge and criminal proceeding completion should now 
grant the relief requested by petitioner to deny a second prosecution. Corbin, 
495 U.S. 508, 110 S. Ct. 2084; Harris, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S. Ct. 2912. The 
fundamental right to be constitutionally protected against successive 
prosecutions traceable back to Greek and Roman times, Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 151-57, 79 S. Ct. 676, 695-97, 3 L. Ed. 2d 684, reh'g denied 360 U.S. 907, 79 S. Ct. 1283, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1258 (1959), Black, J., dissenting, should not be 
so lightly disregarded.

[¶7]      I would grant the 
relief requested by petitioner by application of both the double jeopardy 
preclusions of U.S. Const. amend. V and Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 11.

FOOTNOTE

1           
Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 11 states:

No person shall be 
compelled to testify against himself in any criminal case, nor shall any person 
be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense. If a jury disagree, or if the 
judgment be arrested after a verdict, or if the judgment be reversed for error 
in law, the accused shall not be deemed to have been in jeopardy.