Title: Hewitt v. State

State: nevada

Issuer: Nevada Supreme Court

Document:

Hewitt v. State1992 WY 90835 P.2d 348Case Number: 92-1Decided: 07/28/1992Supreme Court of Wyoming
Becky HEWITT, 

Appellant 
(Defendant),

v.

STATE of Wyoming, 

Appellee 
(Plaintiff).

Appeal from District 
Court, Campbell County, Terrence L. O'Brien, J.

Leonard D. 
Munker, State Public Defender, Gerald M. Gallivan, Director, Defender Aid 
Program, and Bradley D. Bonner, Student Intern, for 
appellant.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., Sylvia L. Hackl, Deputy Atty. Gen., Barbara L. Boyer, Sr. Asst. 
Atty. Gen., Theodore E. Lauer, Director, Prosecution Assistance Program, and 
Joseph A. Rodriguez, Student Intern, for appellee.

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

* Chief Justice at time of 
oral argument.

URBIGKIT, Justice.

[¶1]      Following 
revocation of probation for the use of alcohol, appellant, Becky Hewitt 
(Hewitt), appeals, challenging the trial court's degree of retained control of 
probation revocation.

[¶2]      We 
affirm.

[¶3]      Hewitt states for 
her appellate issue:

I. Whether the directive 
by the trial court judge requiring officers of the Wyoming Department of 
Probation and Parole to report and seek revocation for every violation of the 
court's probation order violates the separation of powers doctrine of Article 2, 
Section 1 of the Wyoming Constitution.

[¶4]      A comprehensive 
analysis of the Wyoming law of parole and probation revocation has recently been 
provided in this court's decision in Wlodarczyk v. State, 836 P.2d 279 (Wyo. 
1992). Judicial revocation was utilized for the court decision under W.R.Cr.P. 
33 (now W.R.Cr.P. 39, effective March 24, 1992). Application of the statutory 
provisions of Wyo. Stat. § 7-13-408 (1987) is not directly presented. See 
Wlodarczyk, 836 P.2d  at 288 n. 10. See also Weisser v. State, 600 P.2d 1320 
(Wyo. 1979) and Knobel v. State, 576 P.2d 941 (Wyo. 1978).

[¶5]      Hewitt was 
charged with multi-count, dual complaint forgery offenses. In technical terms, 
within the vernacular, this was not paper hanging - overwriting one's own 
account - this was forgery of checks on other person's accounts. A plea bargain 
was struck, to be followed by a 1988 sentence of one to five years on four 
separate counts with the sentences to run consecutively in requiring 
incarceration at the Wyoming Women's Center. On May 10, 1990, Hewitt was 
released from confinement and placed on five years probation by order of the 
trial court.

[¶6]      Unfortunately, on 
October 1, 1991, Hewitt, during a random screening, tested positive for the use 
of alcohol - a forbidden probation condition. As a result, her probation was 
revoked and she was re-sentenced to five days in the county jail followed by 
resumed probation.1

[¶7]      The genus of this 
appeal is a contention of Hewitt that the trial court maintains undue control 
over probation officers who provide day-to-day probationary supervision. 
Specifically, it is claimed the probation officer cannot exercise discretion to 
determine whether or not to pursue revocation since all violations must be 
reported to the county attorney when established and that, as a matter of 
course, the county attorney will then be expected to file a revocation request. 
In briefing, Hewitt does not directly challenge a retained discretion of the 
county attorney to withhold action, but rather addresses the denial of 
discretion to the probation officer when violations of probationary terms may 
occur.

[¶8]      Our answer in 
affirming the revocation process is provided by understanding the differentiated 
nature of probation and parole. As we carefully explained in Wlodarczyk, parole 
is an executive agency function, incident to confinement following sentence. 
Probation is a judicial function within which the probation and parole agents 
provide supervisory assistance to the judiciary. Consequently, a differentiated 
status of the probation officer's activities does exist. In probation, they are 
providing supervisory assistance and services to the trial court. In parole, 
they are acting as agents within the state parole office and responsive to the 
Wyoming State Parole Board where final decision is made subject only to judicial 
review. Pisano v. Shillinger, 835 P.2d 1136 (Wyo. 1992). See also Avery v. 
State, 616 P.2d 872 (Alaska 1980).

[¶9]      The concern 
expressed by Hewitt about invasion of the constitutional separation of powers, 
Wyo.Const. art. 2, § 1; Billis v. State, 800 P.2d 401 (Wyo. 1990), lacks 
substance in this case where probation revocation exists as a judicial function 
within the directives established by the Wyoming Supreme Court through adoption 
of W.R.Cr.P. 33 (now W.R.Cr.P. 39).

[¶10]   The process followed in this case 
under the criminal rule is not adequately challenged to provide any issue for 
adverse decision on appeal. Furthermore, a factual basis for the revocation 
order entered, constituting a discretionary responsibility of the trial court, 
is appropriately documented by the admitted drinking of Hewitt. Swackhammer v. 
State, 808 P.2d 219 (Wyo. 1991); Schmidt v. State, 738 P.2d 1105 (Wyo. 1987); 
Smith v. State, 598 P.2d 1389 (Wyo. 1979). The trial court suitably recognized 
in hearing comment that a factor of public interest is involved in the judicial 
responsibility for conduct of persons put on probation and their continuing 
supervision:

Without public 
confidence, probation can't exist as a viable method of dealing with criminal 
defendants. So my goal from the outset is to make probation credible to the 
public at large, and more particularly to people who are involved in the 
process, and most particularly to the probationers who are expected to abide by 
probation terms.

[¶11]   The record does not provide 
evidence of judicial usurpation of the prosecuting attorney's discretion. 
Petition of Padget, 678 P.2d 870 (Wyo. 1984). Persuasion, perhaps, but certainly 
no evidence of usurpation was established. The trial court said:

     I have requested, but 
not required, the county and prosecuting attorney to bring those actions back 
before the Court. And I can't think of any instance where I've ever ordered a 
prosecuting attorney to do that, and I'm not sure I have the authority to order 
them to do it. That's not at issue here.

     I think the evidence 
was clear there was lack of any evidence to indicate that the county and 
prosecuting attorney failed to exercise his own discretion in deciding to bring 
this matter back before the Court. And also want to make the point that the 
policy is that violations of the court's order, only those things that are 
specifically spelled out in the court's probation order, are the only things 
which I want the probation officers to report to the Court and county 
prosecuting attorney.

[¶12]   This court has determined in a 
broad course of decisions that probation is entirely a judicial function. 
Wlodarczyk, 836 P.2d 279 (1992); Weisser, 600 P.2d 1320; Knobel, 576 P.2d 941. 
This court has neither assigned control in management of the individuals within 
the system to the cooperative executive agency through the probation officers 
nor do we assume, in appellate function, to undertake the responsibility to 
confine the trial court's exercise of general discretion under the 
circumstances. State v. Reisch, 491 P.2d 1254 (Wyo. 1971). A request of the 
trial court that the assigned probation officer report violations of the court 
order to the prosecuting attorney neither constitutes an abuse of judicial 
discretion nor intrudes into a separation of powers function of the executive 
agency. State ex rel. Henderson v. Burdick, 4 Wyo. 272, 33 P. 125 (1893). Cf. 
Billis, 800 P.2d 401 and State ex rel. Motor Vehicle Div. v. Holtz, 674 P.2d 732 
(Wyo. 1983).

[¶13]   It can be fairly said that the 
apparent hope of Hewitt that she would have a right to call upon exercised 
discretion of someone else in order to foreclose her required trip to the 
courthouse door is not legally supportable nor adjudicatorially provident. We 
decline to introduce substance by reorganization of the justice delivery system 
to provide justification for that hope.

[¶14]   Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1 It is obvious that the 
trial court, in exercising an abundance of concern about stopping something 
before it got out of hand, used this proceeding as a warning and not as serious 
punishment. Considering the possibilities for re-confinement sentencing 
available to the trial court, the five day jail time was clearly a "sent 
message."