Case Title: DAN HARLAND ELLIFRITZ v. THE STATE OF WYOMING

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1985-08-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
DAN HARLAND ELLIFRITZ v. THE STATE OF WYOMING1985 WY 111704 P.2d 1300Case Number: 84-248Decided: 08/15/1985Supreme Court of Wyoming
DAN HARLAND ELLIFRITZ, 
APPELLANT (DEFENDANT), 

v. 

THE STATE OF 
WYOMING, 
APPELLEE (PLAINTIFF).

 
 
Appeal from the District 
Court, NatronaCounty, R.M. Forrister, 
J.

 
 
Leonard D. 
Munker, State Public Defender and Martin J. McClain, Appellate Counsel, Wyoming 
Public Defender Program, Cheyenne, and Zane R. 
Moseley, Defender Aid Program, Laramie, for appellant.

A.G. McClintock, 
Atty. Gen., Gerald A. Stack, Deputy Atty. Gen., John W. Renneisen, Senior Asst. 
Atty. Gen., and Sylvia Lee Hackl, Asst. Atty. Gen., Cheyenne, for appellee.

Before THOMAS, C.J., and 
ROSE, ROONEY, BROWN and CARDINE, JJ.

BROWN, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     Appellant was convicted 
by a jury of aggravated homicide by vehicle. In his appeal, he alleges error in 
the instructions given the jury.

[¶2.]     According to appellant, 
the issue is:

"Whether the Appellant 
was denied a fair trial because the trial court refused to instruct the jury on 
the Appellant's theory of the case regarding the manner in which his vehicle was 
driven."

[¶3.]     We will 
affirm.

[¶4.]     On November 12, 1983, 
appellant was driving a large truck near Hell's Half Acre in NatronaCounty and hit the rear of an automobile, 
killing the driver, Patricia Morgan. He was charged with, and convicted by a 
jury of, aggravated vehicular homicide, described in § 6-2-106(b), W.S. 1977 
(June 1983 Replacement), which provides:

"A person is guilty of 
aggravated homicide by vehicle and shall be punished by imprisonment in the 
penitentiary for not more than twenty (20) years, if, while driving a motor 
vehicle in violation of W.S. 31-5-233, he unlawfully causes the death of another 
person while driving a motor vehicle and the violation is the proximate cause of 
the death."

Section 
31-5-233, W.S. 1977, 1983 Cum. Supp. (statute in effect on November 12, 1983), 
among other things, proscribed driving or being in control of a vehicle while 
under the influence of intoxicating liquor.

On appeal, 
appellant complains that he was not permitted to have his theory of the case 
conveyed to the jury through instructions. He requested the following 
instructions.1

Proposed Instruction No. 
12

"You are instructed that 
the Defendant's admission, standing alone, that he consumed an alcoholic 
beverage and then drove an automobile, is not sufficient to prove beyond a 
reasonable doubt that he was under the influence of intoxicating liquor to a 
degree which rendered him incapable of safely driving said vehicle. "You are 
further instructed that standing alone, the testimony of the State's witness 
that he smelled alcohol on the breath of the Defendant is not sufficient to 
prove that the Defendant was under the influence of 
alcohol."

Proposed Instruction No. 
13

"* * * [T]he manner in 
which a vehicle is driven does not by itself establish that the driver was or 
was not under the influence of intoxicating liquor. * * *"

Together with 
other instructions, the court gave the first paragraph of proposed Instruction 
12 but did not give the second paragraph, nor the instruction appellant 
designates as "Proposed Instruction No. 13."

[¶5.]     In his brief, appellant 
talks about his theory of the case but never defines a recognized theory. At 
trial, appellant never talked about a theory of the case. We have trouble 
ferreting out a theory for appellant except his contention that the evidence did 
not indicate guilt. A theory of the case is more than a comment on the evidence. 
What appellant suggests in his proposed instructions is comment on the evidence 
- in effect, telling the jury how not to consider the 
evidence.

[¶6.]     In a typical DWUI case, 
there are ordinarily several factors that point to the driver's intoxication; 
i.e., blood alcohol level, erratic driving, slurred speech, admission to having 
consumed a "couple of beers," loquaciousness, bleary eyes, odor of alcohol, 
partly empty bottles of alcohol, report on field sobriety tests, and others. 
Appellant's proposed instructions would have resulted in confusion to the jury 
because they were, in effect, comments on the evidence. If appellant's notion on 
instructions were proper, then logically the court should instruct the jury that 
the presence of any of the aforementioned factors, standing alone, is 
insufficient to convict. If appellant's scheme of instructing were adopted, the 
jury would logically wonder if one indicia of intoxication was insufficient, or 
if two would be sufficient.

[¶7.]     Nothing was said in the 
court's instruction that suggested the smell of alcohol on appellant's breath or 
the manner in which his vehicle was driven was sufficient, standing alone, to 
convict appellant. Without any basis, appellant speculates that the jury might 
convict on one indicia of intoxication; he then requests that the jury be 
instructed that they cannot do something he only guesses they might be inclined 
to do.

[¶8.]     The trial court has a 
duty to instruct the jury on general principles applicable to the case. Benson v. State, Wyo., 571 P.2d 595 
(1977). A defendant has the right to have his theory of the case affirmatively 
presented to the jury. Scheikofsky v. 
State, Wyo., 636 P.2d 1107 (1981). The trial court 
has a duty to properly instruct the jury on defendant's theory of the case even 
though instructions offered by him are "not entirely correct," provided, of 
course, they are sufficient to apprise the court of the theory of the defense. 
Stapleman v. State, Wyo., 680 P.2d 73 
(1984).

[¶9.]     The principles that we 
have set out in Benson, Scheikofsky and Stapleman, supra, are only applicable, 
of course, if there is competent evidence in the record to support defendant's 
theory of the case. The instructions offered by appellant are not theory of the 
case instructions. At trial, appellant did not offer these instructions as 
"theory of the case" instructions; rather, they were offered and refused as 
limiting instructions. On appeal appellant cannot elevate these offered 
instructions into "theory of the case" instructions by simply calling them 
such.

[¶10.]  A fortiori, the trial court properly 
refused the two instructions since they unduly emphasized one aspect of the 
evidence. We have held that a trial court should refuse such an instruction. Evans v. State, Wyo., 655 P.2d 1214 
(1982). Courts in other jurisdictions are in accord. Winters v. People, 174 Colo. 91, 482 P.2d 385 (1971); and State v. Lee, 221 Kan. 109, 558 P.2d 1096 
(1976). In State v. Humbolt, 1 
Kan. App. 2d 
137, 562 P.2d 123 (1977), the court disapproved an instruction "which emphasizes 
and singles out certain evidence admitted at trial," and held the weight to be 
given any evidence is a matter for counsel to argue and for the jury to 
determine. An instruction should not tell the jury how to weigh a particular 
piece of evidence.

[¶11.]  Our review of the evidence discloses that 
the court correctly instructed the jury and it properly refused the instructions 
offered by appellant.

[¶12.]  Affirmed.

1 The second paragraph of 
appellant's proposed Instruction 12, and proposed Instruction 13 are not in the 
record. We learn about these proposed instructions only by reference to the 
transcript of the instruction conference. This is not the proper way to preserve 
an alleged instructional error. When an instructional error is claimed, all the 
instructions whether given or refused should be included in the record. State v. Lee, 221 Kan. 109, 558 P.2d 1096 
(1976).