Title: Warhawk v. State

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Warhawk v. State1993 WY 58849 P.2d 1326Case Number: 92-224Decided: 04/15/1993Supreme Court of Wyoming
James WARHAWK, 

Appellant 
(Defendant),

v.

The STATE of Wyoming, 

Appellee 
(Plaintiff).

Appeal from District 
Court, Natrona County, Dan Spangler, J.

Donald L. 
Painter, Casper, for appellant.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., Sylvia Lee Hackl, Deputy Atty. Gen., Barbara L. Boyer, Sr. Asst. 
Atty. Gen., and Mark T. Moran, Asst. Atty. Gen., for 
appellee.

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

MACY, Chief 
Justice.

[¶1]      Appellant James 
Warhawk appeals from his conviction for forgery in violation of Wyo. Stat. § 
6-3-602(a)(ii) and (b) (1988).

[¶2]      We 
affirm.

[¶3]      Appellant raises 
a single issue for our consideration:

1. Whether the State's 
expert handwriting witness, Pat Burgen, was qualified to render an opinion that 
Defendant forged this check in question.

[¶4]      Appellant was a 
member of the Arid Club of Casper, a club for recovering alcoholics. Between ten 
o'clock in the evening on September 12, 1991, and the early morning hours of 
September 13, 1991, someone stole approximately $38 and three blank checks from 
the Arid Club. Randall Abbot, the Arid Club's president, did not realize that 
the checks had been stolen until the bank called to inquire about an Arid Club 
check in the amount of $487.96 which had been negotiated at Smith's Food & 
Drug. Before he could stop payment on the other checks, a second stolen check in 
the amount of $258.79 was cashed at Oil City Liquors. The third check was never 
recovered. Both of the recovered checks were made payable to James Maness, and 
each indicated that it was for "construction." Mr. Abbot testified that both 
checks were written without his authority and that, to the best of his 
knowledge, James Maness never performed any construction work for the club. He 
also testified that Appellant sometimes used his mother's maiden name, which was 
Maness.

[¶5]      At trial, Pat 
Burgen, a detective with the Casper Police Department, provided the principal 
link between Appellant and the forged checks. Detective Burgen comprehensively 
described the process which he used to compare the endorsements on the Arid Club 
checks with a sample of Appellant's known handwriting. He concluded that it was 
"highly probable" that the endorsement on the back of the check cashed at 
Smith's Food & Drug was Appellant's handwriting. Appellant was further 
implicated by the fact that the check cashed at Smith's Food & Drug had an 
identification number on the back which corresponded to the number on a Wyoming 
identification card issued in James Maness' name and containing Appellant's 
photograph.

[¶6]      The evidence 
associating Appellant with the Oil City Liquors check was more tenuous. 
Detective Burgen found only slight similarities between the endorsement and 
Appellant's handwriting. The writing on the back of the check was sloppy and did 
not contain any conclusive characteristics which could identify Appellant as 
being the endorser. The jury found that Appellant was guilty of forging the 
check cashed at Smith's Food & Drug and that he was not guilty of forging 
the Oil City Liquors check.

[¶7]      Appellant argues 
that the trial court should have excluded Detective Burgen's opinion because the 
detective lacked sufficient qualifications to render an expert opinion. He 
claims in his brief that Detective Burgen's qualifications were inadequate 
because, among other things, the detective did not establish whether he had a 
college degree, whether he was certified in his field, or whether he satisfied 
the minimum training requirements for being a police officer. Appellant did not 
object at trial to the detective's expertise on any of these grounds, nor did he 
request to voir dire the detective. Since Appellant did not object at trial to 
Detective Burgen's testimony, we must decide whether the trial court committed 
plain error by allowing the testimony. W.R.Cr.P. 52(b); W.R.E. 103(d). To invoke 
the doctrine of plain error, Appellant must demonstrate the presence of the 
following three elements:

"`First, the record must 
be clear as to the incident which is alleged as error. Second, the party 
claiming that the error amounted to plain error must demonstrate that a clear 
and unequivocal rule of law was violated. Finally, that party must prove that a 
substantial right has been denied him and as a result he has been materially 
prejudiced.'"

Ramos v. State, 806 P.2d 822, 827 (Wyo. 1991) (quoting Bradley [v. State], 635 P.2d [1161,] 1164 [Wyo. 
1981]).

Rands v. State, 
818 P.2d 44, 48 (Wyo. 1991).

[¶8]      Appellant's 
argument fails to satisfy the second prong of the plain error test because 
Detective Burgen's testimony did not violate a clear and unequivocal rule. 
Pursuant to W.R.E. 702, a witness may be qualified as an expert by "knowledge, 
skill, experience, training, or education." The assistant district attorney in 
this case laid a sufficient evidentiary foundation to establish Detective Burgen 
as being an expert. Detective Burgen was a police officer for fourteen years and 
a detective for four years. He started investigating forgery cases for the 
Casper Police Department in 1989 and, at the time of trial, had investigated 
"[w]ell over two hundred" cases. In 1990, he received seventy hours of training 
in questioned documents from the United States Secret Service. The detective 
received additional training in forensic document examination under Andrew 
Bradley (although the record does not disclose the length of this training or 
Mr. Bradley's position). Further support for Detective Burgen's expertise is 
found in the fact that he previously testified in court over fifty times 
regarding handwriting analyses. The foregoing qualifications displayed that 
Detective Burgen had adequate knowledge and experience in the field of 
handwriting analysis for the trial court to accept him as an expert witness. See 
Chavez v. State, 604 P.2d 1341 (Wyo. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 984, 100 S. Ct. 2967, 64 L. Ed. 2d 841 (1980) (officer with qualifications similar to 
Detective Burgen's considered as being an expert). Consequently, the trial court 
did not commit plain error.

[¶9]      
Affirmed.