Title: Cutbirth v. State

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Cutbirth v. State1988 WY 33751 P.2d 1257Case Number: 86-53Decided: 03/11/1988Supreme Court of Wyoming
RICKEY DON CUTBIRTH, 
APPELLANT (PETITIONER),

 
 
v.

 
 

THE STATE OF 
WYOMING, 
APPELLEE (RESPONDENT).

 
 

Appeal from the District 
Court, LincolnCounty, John D. Troughton, 
J.

 
 

Leonard D. Munker, State 
Public Defender, and Martin J. McClain, Deputy State Public Defender, Wyoming 
Public Defender Program, for 
appellant.

 
 

A.G. McClintock, Atty. 
Gen., Gerald A. Stack, Deputy Atty. Gen., John W. Renneisen, Mary B. Guthrie, 
Sr. Asst. Attys. Gen., and Kaylin D. Kluge, Legal Intern, for appellee.

 
 

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

 
 

THOMAS, Justice.

 
 

[¶1.]     In this appeal, taken 
from the denial of his efforts to obtain post-conviction relief, Cutbirth raises 
two primary questions. Initially, he asserts that the trial court erred in 
denying his motion for a new trial which was premised upon a ground of newly 
discovered evidence. He also claims that the trial court erred in denying his 
motion for post-conviction relief in which he urged ineffective assistance of 
counsel in his direct appeal from his conviction. In support of this latter 
issue, he argues that the ineffective assistance is demonstrated by the failure 
to assert in the direct appeal two issues which he now contends established 
error in the trial proceedings: (1) the introduction into evidence at his trial 
of prior physical assaults which he committed upon his wife; and (2) the 
violation of his constitutional right not to be compelled to give evidence 
against himself. We conclude that there was no prejudicial error implicated in 
these proceedings, and we affirm the decision of the trial court.

 
 

[¶2.]     In his brief, Cutbirth 
states the issues as:

 
 

"I. Whether the trial 
court erred in denying Appellant's Motion for a New Trial which was based upon 
newly discovered evidence.

 
 

"II. Whether Appellant 
received ineffective assistance of counsel in the course of his 
appeal.

 
 

"III. Whether this Court 
erred in permitting the State to introduce evidence pursuant to Rule 404(b), 
W.R.E., that Appellant had previously hit his wife.

 
 

"IV. Whether Appellant's 
conviction was obtained in violation of his constitutional right not to be 
compelled to give evidence against himself."

 
 

The State of Wyoming sets forth this 
statement of the issues to be decided in this case:

 
 

"I. Whether appellant's 
motion for new trial was properly denied because newly discovered evidence was 
presented?

 
 

"II. Whether appellant 
was afforded effective assistance of counsel?

 
 

"III. Whether the issue 
of the admissibility of defendant's prior treatment of the victim was properly 
brought to the attention of this court?

 
 

"IV. Whether appellant's 
conviction was obtained in violation of his constitutional right against 
self-incrimination?

 
 

"V. Whether this entire 
appeal should even be entertained?"

 
 

[¶3.]     The proceedings which 
are the subject of this appeal were initiated in the district court following 
this court's affirmance of the judgment and sentence which formalized Cutbirth's 
conviction of second degree murder. Cutbirth v. State, Wyo., 663 P.2d 888 
(1983). The opinion in that case succinctly describes the circumstances 
surrounding the shooting of Cutbirth's wife on April 4, 1982. The evidence which 
was submitted at the trial was held to be sufficient to justify the jury in 
concluding that, in the course of a quarrel, Cutbirth obtained his .357 Magnum 
pistol from a cabinet, removed it from its holster and shot his wife in the head 
with it. As soon as his conviction was affirmed, Cutbirth instituted collateral 
attacks upon that conviction. Those efforts resulted in a consideration of an 
appeal from a denial of photographs of all exhibits and a transcript of 
Cutbirth's recorded statement to law enforcement officials. Cutbirth v. State, 
Wyo., 695 P.2d 156 (1985). Some of Cutbirth's efforts to proceed with his collateral attacks 
are outlined in that opinion.

 
 

[¶4.]     Cutbirth was successful 
in obtaining permission of the district court to have some of the evidence 
evaluated by an independent criminalist. That individual concluded in a report 
that the explanation of the irregular wound in the victim's head, furnished at 
trial by the pathologist, was erroneous, and "* * * [p]re-impact destabilization 
(e.g. - low angle ricochet) is, however, a possible cause of such an irregular 
entry wound." The report went on to say, however, that "* * * [t]his could 
neither be confirmed or excluded from an examination of the recovered bullet due 
to the extensive terminal ballistic damage and deformation it incurred from 
penetration of bone." The theory of ricochet was relied upon by Cutbirth in his 
Amended Petition for New Trial, and he claims that the new trial should have 
been granted on the ground of newly discovered evidence.

 
 

[¶5.]     In Opie v. State, 
Wyo., 422 P.2d 84, 85 (1967), this court set forth those factors as to which a party seeking a 
new trial must satisfy the court:

 
 

"* * * (1) That the 
evidence has come to his knowledge since the trial; (2) that it was not owing to 
the want of due diligence that it did not come sooner; (3) that it is so 
material that it would probably produce a different verdict, if the new trial 
were granted; and (4) that it is not cumulative, viz, speaking to facts in 
relation to which there was evidence at the trial." (Citations 
omitted.)

 
 

The issues in Opie v. 
State, supra, were similar to those presented in this case. Recently, we have 
reiterated the necessity for demonstrating to the satisfaction of the district 
court that each of these factors is present. Gist v. State, Wyo., 737 P.2d 336 (1987); Frias v. State, Wyo., 722 P.2d 135 
(1986). Whether these factors are manifested sufficiently to justify the 
granting of a new trial is a matter within the discretion of the trial court, 
and we do not reverse the decision of the trial court unless an abuse of 
discretion is shown as a matter of law. Gist v. State, supra. This conclusion 
can only be justified on the basis of a determination that the trial court's 
decision was unreasonable.

 
 

[¶6.]     In this case, the trial 
judge, in his Order Denying New Trial, specifically addressed the issues in this 
way:

 
 

"Now, Petitioner attacks 
his conviction from the opposite direction. Specifically, Petitioner asserts 
that he has discovered new evidence which establishes the killing to be 
accidental. Petitioner offers the conclusions of Lucien C. Haag, a ballistics 
expert, who theorizes: `Pre-impact destabilization (e.g. - low angle ricochet) 
is, however, a possible cause of such an irregular entry wound.'

 
 

"Petitioner's argument 
that the killing was accidental is not a new theory. Although the Court does not 
rely on the statement for its decision in this case, it is interesting to note 
that in a statement to police which was suppressed by the Court at the 
insistence of Petitioner, Mr. Cutbirth reported that he thought the gun was 
empty; that he wanted his wife to leave him alone; that he wanted her to know 
that he meant business; that he pointed the gun in her direction; 
and

 
 

`I thought it would 
click, just snap. It went off. I heard a loud roar, and I jumped. It scared me 
and I looked back her way and I looked at the wall because I figured it (hit) 
the wall; and I seen a little trickle of blood coming down her forehead right 
here.'

 
 

"The theory of an 
accidental killing was submitted to the jury. The jury found the Defendant 
guilty.

 
 

"While the theories of 
Lucien Haag may have come to the attention of Petitioner since the trial, in the 
exercise of due diligence, there was, or is, no valid reason why these theories 
were not sooner discovered.

 
 

"Furthermore, the 
evidence from Lucien Haag is not so material that it would probably produce a 
different result. The premise of the evidence is an irregular entry wound. 
Petitioner, and Mr. Haag, theorize that because the gun `fully and properly 
stabilizes fired bullets' an irregular entrance wound could have been caused 
only by a bullet destabilized by ricochet. However, at trial the pathologist 
testified that there was extensive fracturing of the skull by the bullet; that 
it is fairly normal for such bullets to be `incredibly flat'; that high velocity 
bullets may or may not exit; and that there are two possibilities for irregular 
entrance wounds: unstable bullets or as the bone fractured, it widened the 
wound. The testing of Mr. Haag would, at best, be contradictory or cumulative to 
the testimony elicited at trial. However, it would not conclusively establish 
that the killing was accidental; more importantly it would not make an 
accidental killing more probable than an intentional killing. A jury would still 
be left with the same conflict to resolve: was the killing intentional as 
claimed by the State or was it an accident as claimed by Defendant?"

 
 

[¶7.]     In its order, the trial 
court applied the Opie criteria and found that due diligence would have 
disclosed the views of the criminalist prior to trial; that the testimony of the 
criminalist would be only contradictory or cumulative, i.e., addressing facts as 
to which there was evidence at the trial; and that it was not so material that 
it probably would produce a different verdict at another trial. In addition, to 
those matters discussed by the trial judge, it perhaps is worthwhile to note 
that in one of his reports the criminalist also said:

 
 

"No evidence of ricochet 
was present on this bullet [the bullet removed from the victim's head]; the 
substantial flattening and partial breakup of the bullet was due to terminal 
ballistic damage."

 
 

Even if the subsequent 
report is read as an opinion of ricochet instead of a suggestion of another 
possibility, the opinions of the criminalist are conflicting.

 
 

[¶8.]     Cutbirth urges the 
court to abandon the Opie test, but we are satisfied that the Opie case 
establishes an appropriate approach for analyzing claims such as Cutbirth's. We 
affirm the denial of the motion for new trial which was based on the ground of 
newly discovered evidence. There is less justification for granting a new trial 
on this ground in this case than was present in Frias v. State, supra, in which 
this court affirmed the denial of a motion for a new trial also premised upon a 
claim of newly discovered evidence.

 
 

[¶9.]     We turn then to the 
issue arising from the denial of Cutbirth's petition for post-conviction relief. 
This contention is articulated in Issues II, III and IV of Cutbirth's statement 
of the issues. The claims relating to the issues of the prior battery and the 
inadmissibility of Cutbirth's statements come before us only out of an abundance 
of caution in honoring the right to effective assistance of counsel in 
connection with an appeal, suggested by Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S. Ct. 830, 83 L. Ed. 2d 821, reh. denied 470 U.S. 1065, 105 S. Ct. 1783, 84 L. Ed. 2d 841 (1985). While counsel was appointed to represent Cutbirth in connection with 
the motion for new trial based upon newly discovered evidence, the appointed 
attorney apparently understood that his duties were limited to that purpose.1 For this reason, the notice of 
appeal in this case was filed by Cutbirth pro se, and the appeal was taken only 
from the Order Denying New Trial, without any reference being made in the notice 
of appeal to the order which denied Cutbirth's petition for post-conviction 
relief. Consequently, upon application by counsel appointed to prosecute the 
appeal, this court entered an order expanding the scope of the appeal to include 
the question of adequate representation in the direct appeal and the collateral 
questions raised as justification for the contention of inadequate 
representation.

 
 

[¶10.]  Under our usual rule, we would not 
consider the contention that the court erred at trial in permitting the 
introduction into evidence of prior bad acts pursuant to Rule 404(b), W.R.E., 
nor the claim that Cutbirth's right not to be compelled to give evidence against 
himself had been violated. This court has taken a disciplined approach to 
post-conviction relief, pointing out that it is not a substitute for the right 
of review upon appeal from a conviction, nor is it to be treated as an appeal. 
Pote v. State, Wyo., 733 P.2d 1018 (1987); 
Hoggatt v. State, Wyo., 606 P.2d 718 (1980); 
Johnson v. State, Wyo., 592 P.2d 285, cert. 
denied 442 U.S. 932, 99 S. Ct. 2864, 61 L. Ed. 2d 300 (1979); Munoz v. Maschner, Wyo., 590 P.2d 1352 (1979). Questions which 
may be raised by a motion for post-conviction relief are limited to those of 
constitutional magnitude which manifest a miscarriage of justice. Wright v. 
State, Wyo., 
718 P.2d 35 (1986); Hoggatt v. State, supra. Those issues which could have been 
presented on appeal are not open to challenge by a motion for post-conviction 
relief because they are foreclosed by the doctrine of res judicata. Wright v. 
State, supra; Hoggatt v. State, supra; Munoz v. Maschner, supra.

 
 

[¶11.]  Our rule is one of procedural waiver or 
default which is in accord with the rule invoked when a post-conviction review 
proceeding is pursued in the federal courts. If a person convicted in state 
court fails to assert a legal issue when an appropriate opportunity exists, in 
accordance with state procedural rules, that person is foreclosed from relief in 
a federal post-conviction proceeding unless he can meet the dual requirements of 
showing cause for the failure and actual prejudice. Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 104 S. Ct. 2901, 82 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1984); Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S. Ct. 1558, 71 L. Ed. 2d 783, reh. denied 456 U.S. 1001, 102 S. Ct. 2286, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1296 (1982); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S. Ct. 2497, 53 L. Ed. 2d 594, reh. denied 434 U.S. 880, 98 S. Ct. 241, 54 L. Ed. 2d 163 (1977); Pierre v. Shulsen, 802 F.2d 1282 (10th Cir. 1986), cert. 
denied ___ U.S. ___, 107 S. Ct. 1964, 95 L. Ed. 2d 536 (1987), reh. denied ___ U.S. ___, 107 S. Ct. 3246, 97 L. Ed. 2d 750 (1987); 
Andrews v. Shulsen, 802 F.2d 1256 (10th Cir. 1986) cert. denied ___ U.S. 
___, 107 S. Ct. 1964, 95 L. Ed. 2d 536, reh. denied ___ U.S. 
___, 107 S. Ct. 3246, 97 L. Ed. 2d 750 (1987).2 Policy principles of finality and 
judicial economy demand that a state be allowed, as a matter of procedure, to 
compel a defendant to assert all claims of error in his direct appeal. Failure 
to do so justly results in a waiver of those issues in collateral proceedings. 
Wright v. State, supra. Our approach fits with the federal rule because in the 
courts of this state, a convicted person is foreclosed from raising in a 
post-conviction proceeding any claim of error which he could or should have 
presented on appeal unless he demonstrates good cause for not presenting the 
issue on appeal and actual prejudice arising from the failure to present it. 
This adoption of a rule parallel to the rule applied in the federal courts will 
facilitate in a material way the task of the federal courts in examining issues 
raised in federal post-conviction proceedings in which review is sought of a 
conviction in the State of Wyoming.

 
 

[¶12.]  The waiver rule serves to foreclose those 
claims made in Cutbirth's Petition for Post-Conviction Relief and his Amendment 
to the Original Petition for Post-Conviction Relief3 which we did not include in our 
order expanding the appeal. We reiterate that the courts of this state are not 
required to review issues which were raised or could have been raised on appeal 
when they are asserted in a motion for post-conviction relief. See Bryant v. 
State, Hawaii App., 720 P.2d 1015 (1986), citing Post Conviction Procedure A 
Suggested Solution, 2 Harv.J. on Legis. 189 (1965) (purpose of state 
post-conviction statutes is to afford relief similar to that of a federal writ 
of habeas corpus and to assure protection of constitutional rights in state 
courts).

 
 

[¶13.]  We turn then to the claim that Cutbirth 
was denied effective assistance of counsel on his direct appeal. Cutbirth's 
claim of ineffective assistance of counsel rests upon the failure to assert on 
appeal the two collateral issues identified as III and IV above. The claim that 
counsel on appeal did not raise every potential issue is a relatively new 
phenomenon. We have discovered only a few cases in which reversible error for 
ineffective assistance of appellate counsel was premised upon the failure to 
raise certain issues on appeal. Matire v. Wainwright, 811 F.2d 1430 (11th Cir. 
1987); Burton v. State, Ind., 455 N.E.2d 938 
(1983); Shipley v. Cupp, 59 Or. App. 283, 650 P.2d 1032 (1982). While reaching 
the same result, cases in Pennsylvania are 
distinguishable because the Pennsylvania rule requires that all issues of 
even arguable merit be raised, and there is no requirement of a finding of 
prejudice to the accused. E.g., Commonwealth v. Pfaff, 477 Pa. 461, 384 A.2d 1179 (1978); Commonwealth v. Carr, 320 
Pa. Super. 1, 
466 A.2d 1030 (1983); Commonwealth v. Broomell, 254 Pa. Super. 574, 386 A.2d 99 (1978). But see Commonwealth v. Dockins, 324 Pa. Super. 305, 471 A.2d 851 (1984). The 
plethora of precedent which over the years consistently has rejected claims of 
ineffective assistance of appellate counsel premised upon the failure to raise 
particular issues can be found in the cases cited in Annotation, Adequacy of 
Defense Counsel's Representation of Criminal Client Regarding Appellate and 
Postconviction Remedies, 15 A.L.R.4th 582 (1982 and Supp. 1987). Ineffective 
assistance of appellate counsel may justify review of a state court decision by 
a federal court, but the "cause and prejudice test" normally will be applied to 
such contentions. Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 106 S. Ct. 2661, 91 L. Ed. 2d 434 (1986). Generally, "* * * the mere fact that counsel failed to recognize the 
factual or legal basis for a claim, or failed to raise the claim despite 
recognizing it, does not constitute cause for a procedural default." Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 486, 
106 S. Ct. 2639, 2645, 91 L. Ed. 2d 397 (1986). In Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 
103 S. Ct. 3308, 77 L. Ed. 2d 987 (1983), the court pointed out that raising every 
issue on appeal can lessen the impact of specific issues which counsel feels 
offer a reasonable chance of success. It follows that the simple failure to 
raise certain issues on appeal, even if they were meritorious, does not require 
a conclusion of ineffective assistance of counsel. Evitts v. Lucey, supra. The 
statement by the Supreme Court of the United States is that:

 
 

"* * * A brief that 
raises every colorable issue runs the risk of burying good arguments - those 
that, in the words of the great advocate John W. Davis, `go for the jugular,' 
Davis, The Argument of an Appeal, 26 A.B.A.J. 895, 897 (1940) - in a verbal 
mound made up of strong and weak contentions." Jones v. Barnes, supra, 463 U.S.  at 753, 103 S. Ct.  at 
3313.

 
 

In Smith v. Murray, 
supra, 477 U.S.  at 536, 106 S. Ct.  at 2667, the 
Supreme Court, quoting Jones v. Barnes, supra, said:

 
 

"* * * This process of 
`winnowing out weaker arguments on appeal and focusing on' those more likely to 
prevail, far from being evidence of incompetence, is the hallmark of effective 
appellate advocacy."

 
 

Tactical choices play a 
part in appeal as well as at the trial level.

 
 

[¶14.]  The claim of ineffective assistance of 
appellate counsel is not an issue which can be foreclosed as a matter of waiver 
or default under Wyoming law because it is not an issue that 
could have been raised in the initial appeal. We must, therefore, consider that 
issue. The first task is to identify a standard by which effective assistance of 
counsel on appeal may be tested. With respect to the standard of effective 
assistance of counsel on appeal, we adopt the test set forth in Strickland v. 
Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, reh. denied 467 U.S. 1267, 104 S. Ct. 3562, 82 L. Ed. 2d 864 (1984), which we have applied with respect to effective assistance of 
counsel in the trial courts. E.g., Frias v. State, supra; Munden v. State, 
Wyo., 698 P.2d 621 (1985). This approach is the one which the majority of the federal courts 
have adopted, although the Supreme Court of the United States 
has not addressed the issue specifically. Robison v. Maynard, 829 F.2d 1501 
(10th Cir. 1987); Gray v. Greer, 800 F.2d 644 (7th Cir. 1986); Griffin v. Aiken, 
775 F.2d 1226 (4th Cir. 1985) cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 106 S. Ct. 3301, 92 L. Ed. 2d 715 (1986); Bowen v. Foltz, 763 F.2d 191, (6th Cir. 1985); Schwander v. 
Blackburn, 750 F.2d 494 (5th Cir. 1985); Mitchell v. Scully, 746 F.2d 951 (2nd 
Cir. 1984), cert. denied 470 U.S. 1056, 105 S. Ct. 1765, 84 L. Ed. 2d 826 (1985); 
Cape v. Francis, 741 F.2d 1287 (11th Cir. 1984), reh. denied 760 F.2d 281 (11th 
Cir.), cert. denied 474 U.S. 911, 106 S. Ct. 281, 88 L. Ed. 2d 245 (1985); Parton 
v. Wyrick, 704 F.2d 415 (8th Cir. 1983). The same requirements are applicable 
that are set forth in Strickland v. Washington, supra. It must be demonstrated 
that counsel's representation was deficient by showing errors were made that 
were so serious that counsel was not functioning in accordance with the 
constitutional guarantee, and furthermore, the deficient performance prejudiced 
the appellant. Cutbirth urges us to adopt the test found in Watson v. 
United 
States, 508 A.2d 75 (D.C.App. 1986). Watson v. 
United States, supra, was 
vacated by Watson v. United 
States, 514 A.2d 800 (D.C.App. 1986), and the 
case then was heard en banc. In a plurality decision, the United States Court of 
Appeals for the District of 
Columbia followed the Strickland test for ineffective 
assistance of appellate counsel and found neither error nor prejudice. Watson v. 
United 
States, 536 A.2d 1056 (D.C.App. 1987). We are 
satisfied that the Strickland test represents the better rule.

 
 

[¶15.]  To paraphrase Strickland v. Washington, 
supra, as quoted in Gist v. State, supra, Campbell v. State, Wyo., 728 P.2d 628 
(1986), and Frias v. State, supra, in analyzing the question of prejudice to 
Cutbirth, the failure to assert the claimed issues in his direct appeal must be 
found to have resulted in the denial to Cutbirth of a fair review, the result of 
which is not to be considered reliable, by showing an error of judgment on the 
part of counsel and resulting prejudice. In this instance, the district court 
held no hearing with respect to the issue of ineffective assistance of appellate 
counsel, and this makes the determination more difficult. Wicker v. McCotter, 
783 F.2d 487 (5th Cir. 1986), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 106 S. Ct. 3310, 92 L. Ed. 2d 723 (1986); 
Hamilton v. 
McCotter, 772 F.2d 171, reh. denied 777 F.2d 701 (5th Cir. 1985); Griffin v. Aiken, supra. In 
Robison v. Maynard, supra, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case 
to the district court for a factual inquiry with respect to the reasons that 
appellate counsel failed to raise certain issues on direct appeal. In Gray v. 
Greer, supra, the court alluded to the possibility of requiring a hearing to 
establish the facts with respect to the failure to raise issues on appeal and 
said at 800 F.2d 647:

 
 

"Petitioner further seeks 
an evidentiary hearing to resolve his claim of ineffective assistance of 
counsel. An evidentiary hearing is required only if a review of the record is 
not sufficient to resolve factual disputes regarding the choice of issues. 
Williams v. Owens, 731 F.2d 391 (7th Cir. 1983). Given the nature of 
petitioner's claims, it is difficult to envision the evidence of testimony which 
petitioner would present at such a hearing. When a claim of ineffective 
assistance of counsel is based on failure to raise issues on appeal, we note it 
is the exceptional case that could not be resolved on an examination of the 
record alone. We leave the determination of whether an evidentiary hearing is 
required to the discretion of the district court after review of the trial 
record."

 
 

The Supreme Court of the 
United 
States in some of its decisions indicates that 
its analysis is based on a factual determination or finding made by the district 
court. See Burger v. Kemp, ___ U.S. ___, 107 S. Ct. 3114, 97 L. Ed. 2d 638, reh. denied ___ U.S. 
___, 108 S. Ct. 32, 97 L. Ed. 2d 820 (1987); Smith v. Murray, supra. In this 
instance, in order to weigh either question of error, that is, deficient 
representation, or prejudice, we must turn to the record of the original 
trial.

 
 

[¶16.]  The evidence which Cutbirth asserts 
violated Rule 404(b), W.R.E., is summarized in Cutbirth v. State, supra, 663 P.2d  at 890. Essentially, it consisted of testimony of a battery committed upon 
the victim in the preceding year; instances in which Cutbirth was chasing his 
wife who was trying to escape; Cutbirth's statements that he had given the 
victim a black eye; and two occasions of medical treatment of the victim for 
consequences of batteries by Cutbirth. The trial court entertained an offer of 
proof in chambers and then ruled that the evidence was admissible as bearing 
upon the issues of motive, malice, lack of accident and course of conduct. 
Without unwarranted detail, we hold that the trial court was correct in its 
ruling admitting the evidence of the prior bad acts pursuant to Rules 402, 403 
and 404(b), W.R.E. There was no abuse of discretion in that decision. It was 
consistent with precedent in this state and elsewhere. Coleman v. State, 
Wyo., 741 P.2d 99 (1987); Elliott v. State, 
Wyo., 600 P.2d 1044 (1979); Lonquest v. State, 
Wyo., 495 P.2d 575, cert. denied 409 U.S. 1006, 93 S. Ct. 432, 34 L. Ed. 2d 299 (1972); Alcala v. State, Wyo., 487 P.2d 448 (1971), cert. denied 405 U.S. 997, 92 S. Ct. 1259, 31 L. Ed. 2d 466, reh. denied 406 U.S. 911, 92 S. Ct. 1613, 31 L. Ed. 2d 823 (1972); State v. Grider, 74 Wyo. 88, 284 P.2d 400, reh. denied 74 
Wyo. 111, 288 P.2d 766 (1955); State v. Koch, 
64 Wyo. 175, 
189 P.2d 162 (1948). See also United 
States v. Naranjo, 710 F.2d 1465 (10th Cir. 1983); 
United States v. 
Tsinnijinnie, 601 F.2d 1035 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied 445 U.S. 966, 100 S. Ct. 1657, 64 L. Ed. 2d 242 (1980); People v. Lazare, 189 Colo. 530, 542 P.2d 1290 
(1975).

 
 

[¶17.]  With respect to the contention that his 
constitutional protection against self-incrimination was infringed, Cutbirth 
relies upon both the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States of 
America and Art. 1, § 2 of the Wyoming Constitution. 
Prior to trial, a suppression hearing was conducted in the district court. At 
that juncture, the trial court limited the admissibility of statements made by 
Cutbirth to the investigating officers to those that were furnished prior to the 
advice that Cutbirth's wife had died. The district judge found that the 
statements made prior to that time were free of coercive influence and were 
voluntary and admissible. He foreclosed the admission of other statements. Our 
review of the record persuades us that the ruling by the district court was 
within the totality of the circumstances test which we adopted in Frias v. 
State, supra. The statements which were admitted were the product of uncoerced 
choice and demonstrated sufficient comprehension to assure that the waiver of 
Cutbirth's right to silence was made with full awareness of both the nature of 
his right and the consequences of his decision. This case is similar to Best v. 
State, Wyo., 736 P.2d 739 (1987), and 
Bueno-Hernandez v. State, Wyo., 724 P.2d 1132 
(1986), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 107 S. Ct. 1353, 94 L. Ed. 2d 523 (1987), and we support the decision of the trial court as to the limited 
admissibility of Cutbirth's statements. Cutbirth relies upon evidence that his 
blood alcohol content was more than .002. Other testimony, however, demonstrates 
the validity of the district court's ruling that Cutbirth was in control of his 
faculties and aware of what he was doing at the time he made the statements to 
the officers. This determination also is consistent with Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 106 S. Ct. 445, 88 L. Ed. 2d 405 (1985), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 107 S. Ct. 585, 93 L. Ed. 2d 587 (1986), upon which Cutbirth relies.

 
 

[¶18.]  Although we would not be required to 
review the claims presented by the third and fourth issues, we have concluded 
that no error was made by the district court at trial in connection with those 
issues. Consequently, those claims cannot support a contention of ineffective 
assistance of counsel; no prejudice can be found with respect to them. Our 
conclusion that no prejudice can be found with respect to the failure to raise 
these issues on the appeal makes it unnecessary to compare them with other 
issues presented in Cutbirth's appeal to determine if appellate counsel was 
guilty of deficient representation. It follows that Cutbirth, being unable to 
demonstrate prejudice, cannot claim inadequate representation of appellate 
counsel. His failure to satisfy the prejudice aspect of the test forecloses that 
claim.

 
 

[¶19.]  This discussion resolves the issues in 
this case. We recognize, however, that approaching the task in this manner is 
antithetical to the strict application of the waiver rule. By agreeing to expand 
the scope of this appeal, we created a demand that we address the substantive 
claims which normally would be barred but which Cutbirth invoked by tying them 
to his claim of inadequate representation by appellate counsel. We should 
attempt to develop a concrete standard for adequate representation by appellate 
counsel so that we will not in every instance proceed contrary to the waiver 
rule and will not in every instance simply address the matter in an ad hoc way 
which inevitably finds counsel's professional decisions tested by the collective 
determination of the members of the appellate panel as to what they would have 
done given the same situation. We conclude that the issue of whether counsel's 
performance was constitutionally deficient in light of Strickland v. Washington, supra, as 
invoked in Smith v. Murray, supra, and Murray v. Carrier, supra, should be 
analyzed in much the same way that this court has analyzed the concept of plain 
error.4 In submitting a claim of deficient 
representation by appellate counsel, the petitioner in the post-conviction 
proceeding must demonstrate to the district court, by reference to the record of 
the original trial without resort to speculation or equivocal inference, what 
occurred at that trial. The particular facts upon which the claim of inadequate 
representation by appellate counsel rests must be presented. The petitioner then 
must identify a clear and unequivocal rule of law which those facts demonstrate 
was transgressed in a clear and obvious, not merely arguable, way. Furthermore, 
the petitioner must show the adverse effect upon a substantial right in order to 
complete a claim that the performance of appellate counsel was constitutionally 
deficient because of a failure to raise the issue on appeal. See McDonald v. 
State, Wyo., 715 P.2d 209 (1986); Tompkins v. 
State, Wyo., 705 P.2d 836 (1985), cert. denied 
475 U.S. 1052, 106 S. Ct. 1277, 89 L. Ed. 2d 585 (1986); Munden v. State, Wyo., 698 P.2d 621 (1985); Westmark v. State, Wyo., 693 P.2d 220 (1984); Hampton v. State, Wyo., 558 P.2d 504 (1977). The adverse effect 
upon a substantial right in the context of ineffective assistance of appellate 
counsel is shown by demonstrating a "* * * reasonable probability that, but for 
counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been 
different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine 
confidence in the outcome." Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S.  at 694, 104 S. Ct.  at 2068. In 
this regard the test does address the fairness and integrity of the judicial 
proceedings. See Hopkinson v. State, Wyo., 632 P.2d 79 (1981), cert. denied 455 U.S. 922, 102 S. Ct. 1280, 71 L. Ed. 2d 463 
(1982); Jones v. State, Wyo., 580 P.2d 1150 (1978). The reasonable 
probability must be one that demonstrates a more favorable result to the 
appellant if the omitted issue had been pursued. See Nimmo v. State, Wyo., 603 P.2d 386 
(1979).

 
 

[¶20.]  The application of these objective 
criteria will permit a trial court presented with a claim for post-conviction 
relief to decide whether a showing of cause has been made sufficient to avoid 
the waiver rule. The claim for relief attaching to inadequate representation by 
appellate counsel can be resolved without necessarily considering the 
substantive merit of the issues raised. If this process is followed, petitioners 
for post-conviction relief are not permitted to evade the waiver principle by 
the device of claiming inadequate representation by appellate counsel. Yet the 
petitioner who may have been denied adequate representation by appellate counsel 
is afforded a fair opportunity for potentially meritorious issues to be 
resolved.

 
 

[¶21.]  In Cutbirth's case, the process which we 
have described would have led to a correct result without any necessity for 
considering, in any substantive way, the issues which he claims appellate 
counsel failed to present. The claim of inadequate representation by appellate 
counsel could have been resolved by the application of the objective criteria 
set forth above rather than an examination of the merits of the claimed issues 
or simply an ad hoc analysis of them by the court to determine what its members 
might have done differently. When the objective criteria are invoked and the 
district court then is persuaded that appellate counsel did make a mistake which 
was prejudicial to the rights of the petitioner, appropriate relief can be 
afforded by ordering a new trial or, in the alternative, a reinstatement of the 
direct appeal so that the issue may be presented.

 
 

[¶22.]  The district court correctly resolved the 
claim by Cutbirth that he was entitled to a new trial because of newly 
discovered evidence. There was no error in the order of the court denying the 
petition for post-conviction relief with respect to the contention of 
ineffective assistance of counsel in Cutbirth's direct appeal, nor for any of 
the other reasons asserted in that petition for post-conviction relief. We 
affirm the district court on both aspects of this appeal.

 
 

URBIGKIT, J., filed a dissenting 
opinion.

 
 

FOOTNOTES

 
 

1 We have resolved any concern about 
the failure to appoint counsel to represent Cutbirth in connection with his 
petition for post-conviction relief. He did not encompass in his petition, nor 
in his amended petition, the allegations alluded to in § 7-14-104, W.S. 1977. 
The only reference to his desire for counsel appeared in a pleading styled "In 
Answer to Respondent's Motion to Dismiss" which was not verified. Furthermore, 
no complaint is made in this appeal of the failure to appoint counsel to 
represent Cutbirth on his petition for post-conviction 
relief.

 
 

2 The Supreme Court of the 
United 
States has structured an exception to this 
rule. "* * * Accordingly, we think that in an extraordinary case, where a 
constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is 
actually innocent, a federal habeas court may grant the writ even in the absence 
of a showing of cause for the procedural default." Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, ___, 
106 S. Ct. 2639, 2650, 91 L. Ed. 2d 397 (1986). This case is not one in which that 
exception would pertain.

 
 

3 While couched in language that 
asserts constitutional claims, these contentions essentially are claimed errors 
of law which should have been asserted in the direct appeal. They include: a 
claim of denial of compulsory process to obtain witnesses (and apparently 
evidence) favorable to the accused attributed to the fault of counsel at trial; 
the failure to arrest Cutbirth pursuant to a regularly issued warrant, which is 
asserted as a violation of the due process clause; the failure of the county 
coroner to hold an inquest, which also is asserted as a violation of the due 
process clause; and misconduct by the county attorney in conspiring to make a 
homicide case out of an accidental shooting. These contentions in many respects 
are patently specious.

 
 

4 The standard which we adopt is less 
stringent than that which has been invoked by the Supreme Court of the United 
States in United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S. Ct. 1584, 71 L. Ed. 2d 816, 
reh. denied 456 U.S. 1001, 
102 S. Ct. 2287, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1296 (1982), and Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S. Ct. 1558, 71 L. Ed. 2d 783, reh. denied 456 U.S. 1001, 102 S. Ct. 2286, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1296 (1982). It is true that, in those cases, the Supreme Court of the 
United 
States rejected the defendant's contention that 
the cause and prejudice standard should be determined in the context of a plain 
error inquiry. The Court stated that because of the important concerns of 
finality with respect to challenges to state convictions and because of comity 
considerations:

 
 
"We remain convinced that the burden 
of justifying federal habeas relief for state prisoners is `greater than the 
showing required to establish plain error on direct appeal.' Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154, 97 S. Ct. 1730, 1736, 52 L. Ed. 2d 203 (1977); United States v. 
Frady, 456 U.S.  at 166, 102 S. Ct.  at 1593." 
(Footnote omitted.) Engle v. Isaac, supra, 456 U.S.  at 134-135, 
102 S. Ct.  at 1575.

 
 
When a state court is asked to 
determine if the performance of counsel on appeal did not meet the standard of 
effective assistance, it is our conclusion that the less stringent standard of 
plain error is appropriate. Unless a hearing is to be required in every instance 
to investigate the rationale of appellate counsel with respect to eliminating 
issues from the appeal, some objective standard is appropriate to measure 
whether the assistance furnished was effective. See Gray v. Greer, 800 F.2d 644 
(7th Cir. 1986). The plain error standard encompasses those errors which are 
permitted to be raised on appeal even though a proper objection was not made at 
trial to preserve the error for appeal. The usual requirement of the objection 
is waived because the error is perceived to be of sufficient magnitude that 
reasonably effective counsel would have preserved it for appeal by an 
appropriate objection. It is described as the type of error which undermines 
confidence in the outcome of the trial. 3A C. Wright, Federal Practice and 
Procedure, Criminal 2d, § 856 (1982). If the failure to raise an issue on appeal 
is evaluated pursuant to the plain error standard, the conclusion that may be 
reached is the failure to raise the issue extended beyond the range of 
reasonably effective performance and undermines the confidence in the appellate 
process. The omission of such an issue when obvious reversible error is 
demonstrated cannot be justified as a tactical decision. Cf. Burger v. Kemp, ___ 
U.S. ___, 107 S. Ct. 3114, 97 L. Ed. 2d 638, reh. denied ___ U.S. 
___, 108 S. Ct. 32, 97 L. Ed. 2d 820 (1987); Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 106 S. Ct. 2661, 91 L. Ed. 2d 434 (1986). This objective standard of plain error is not dissimilar from the 
standard identified in other decisions which have attempted to establish some 
objective criteria for identifying error by appellate counsel which manifests 
ineffective assistance. See Robison v. Maynard, 829 F.2d 1501 (10th Cir. 1987) 
(facially appears that a reversal is conceivable had the issue been raised on 
appeal); Matire v. Wainwright, 811 F.2d 1430 (11th Cir. 1987) (a single weak 
issue raised notwithstanding the availability of a substantial meritorious 
issue); Gray v. Greer, supra, (whether the issues omitted clearly would have 
been more likely to result in reversal and were so obvious from the trial record 
that the failure to present such issues amounted to ineffective assistance of 
appellate counsel).

 
 

Burton v. State, Ind., 455 N.E.2d 938 
(1983) and Shipley v. Cupp, Or. App., 650 P.2d 1032 (1982) are consistent with 
Matire v. Wainwright, supra, but the proposition is not as precisely 
articulated, and the test provided in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, reh. denied 467 U.S. 1267, 104 S. Ct. 3562, 82 L. Ed. 2d 864 (1984), is not discussed.

 
 

URBIGKIT, Justice, 
dissenting.

 
 

[¶23.]  This appeal follows denial of 
post-conviction relief to the convicted defendant in two separate proceedings. 
Rickey Cutbirth first filed a pro-se motion for a new trial on the basis of 
newly discovered evidence, followed by a petition for post-conviction relief 
alleging trial error. An application for the appointment of counsel actually was 
not made at the commencement of either proceeding. Counsel was appointed for 
legal assistance on the motion for new trial but not for the 
post-conviction-relief petition which was summarily denied without hearing. 
Later, following a hearing but without the presentation of actual evidence and 
premised only on argument of counsel, the motion for new trial was denied. 
Without counsel for the trial court session to organize properly the 
post-conviction petition,1 it is necessary to consider the 
appeal status essentially as if two different cases are presented by separate 
appeals. 

 
 

[¶24.]  In the absence of other eyewitness 
testimony, the critical issue of the conviction, whether an accident or intended 
homicide, was determinable primarily on physical evidence as observed and 
reported by expert witness, involving the gun distance from decedent, 
powder-burn determinants, projectile direction and movement on entry, and 
contended conflicts in the defendant's testimony of his explanations during 
police interrogation.

 
 

MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL 
BASED ON NEWLY DISCOVERED EVIDENCE

 
 

[¶25.]  If anything was learned from Frias v. 
State, Wyo., 722 P.2d 135 (1986) and the succeeding acquittal trial after 
remand, it is that expert pathology evidence can be inherently suspect and when 
it is properly answered by experienced experts, may not be so absolute and 
certain as first related by the forensic witness when parameters are uncluttered 
by opposing experts (somewhat like untested eyewitness identification). 
Initially, on the subject of Frias, the court misreads that decision, although 
the author of this majority opinion had there dissented to the reversal and 
retrial which resulted in acquittal. In that case, the majority chose the broad 
context of ineffectiveness of counsel within which the failure to have suitable 
pathology testimony, subsequently denied in post-hearing request, was an 
important characteristic. I would read the decision to demonstrate, in a certain 
and absolutely related way, that not only was there ineffectiveness of counsel, 
but there was clear mistake in denial of the motion for a new trial. In retrial, 
defendant was acquitted, based on previously denied testimony. Additionally in 
that case, the record was much more specifically developed by evidentiary 
post-trial hearing.

 
 

[¶26.]  Obviously, the singular problem presented 
in this case by the motion for new trial was the unexplained loss by the police 
of the garment worn by defendant. Under expert examination, this evidence might 
have categorically destroyed the thrust of the prosecution's trial-time expert 
testimony as clearly probative in the resulting conviction, since the critical 
issue was whether the fatal injury was derived from a ricocheted bullet or a 
direct shot. The significance of the missing shirt as an item of evidence was 
detailed in a written report of the defendant's expert:

 
 

"As of this date the 
white, long-sleeve shirt purportedly worn by Rickey Cutbirth at the time of the 
shooting of Patricia Cutbirth has not been received by the undersigned. (This 
garment is item # 1 on the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory Report dated May 24, 
1982, Kemmerer case no. 82-0810 and signed by Howard D. Herr.) It is this shirt 
and the distribution of any gunshot residues on it that stands to confirm Mr. 
Cutbirth's description of this shooting as an accident. It was for this reason 
that it was specifically named as the second item of physical evidence in the 
Court Order of Judge Troughton dated October 3, 1983. For similar reasons the 
upper garment[s] worn by the deceased were sought but have never been 
produced."

 
 

[¶27.]  In the order of the trial court denying 
the motion for new trial, it was said:

 
 

"While the theories of 
Lucien Haag [the forensic expert on firearms and ballistics employed by 
defendant for the post-trial motion for new trial] may have come to the 
attention of Petitioner since the trial, in the exercise of due diligence, there 
was, or is, no valid reason why these theories were not sooner 
discovered."

 
 

[¶28.]  Unless we attribute to clients the 
supposed experience, knowledge, competency, and capability of counsel as 
attributable to learned members of the bar - particularly so when the client is 
in jail and the attorney has the flexibility of office and library - all of this 
is to define the happenstance of performance of counsel to be the assumed 
responsibility of the charged defendant. In the first place, unless we are going 
to arrange to have the attorney go to jail for his mistakes in defense rather 
than the client, which may have been the case at short periods in the ancient 
past, I decline to impose empirically on defendant his incarceration as the 
burden for the inadequacy of representation. See Laing v. State, Wyo., 746 P.2d 1247, 1250 
(1987), Urbigkit, J., and Macy, J., concurring in part and dissenting in 
part.

 
 

[¶29.]  Secondly, in this year of bicentennial 
celebration of the United States Constitution and near centennial birth of the 
Wyoming Constitution, there appears to be a tendency to short-circuit 
constitutional rights in the search for simplicity, expediency, and maybe just 
less work. Due process and effective assistance of counsel are not juristic 
idioms or legalistic oxymorons2 to be disregarded pragmatically. 
They are the essence of any democratic government's justice-delivery system. 
Even so, each of us should meticulously re-read Art. 1 of the Wyoming 
Constitution, including in particular § 6, Due Process; § 9, Trial by Jury 
Inviolate; and § 10, Right of Accused to Defend, with the due-process guarantees 
of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States 
Constitution. I have no particular problem with the Opie test (Opie v. State, 
Wyo., 422 P.2d 84 (1967)), if rationally applied so as not to become a mechanism 
to incarcerate an individual for counsel mistakes and failures or perhaps just 
understandable misconception in trial preparation and strategy. There is no 
person, and in particular no trial lawyer, found to be designed in performance 
perfection, yet the immutable character of performance should not be what 
inevitably compels finality to an unjustified conviction.

 
 

[¶30.]  It is not the burden of my dissent to 
apply individualized self-experience (as may be derived from past active trial 
experience) to legal process, technical witnesses, and even ballistics 
questions, to determine empirically on a short-written report that, in fact, a 
basis for a new trial was or was not submitted. Obviously, sufficient evidence 
was not available to the trial judge to make a decision in either regard. What 
should be done, where the clarity of conflict of the specific testimonial facts 
is presented as is the case evidenced here, is to provide, at a minimum, a 
hearing with live witnesses for review and evaluation, in order to assure due 
process in a fashion not to be short-circuited and excused by the stale and 
almost obscene explanation that defendant waived something about which he had no 
knowledge and concerning which his experience was totally lacking. Obviously, 
trial counsel (and perhaps even trial judges) had better learn something from 
Frias and Cutbirth in accidental versus intentional homicide cases, but little 
solace is afforded at this stage. No lawyer is perfect; no judge is perfect; and 
no system is, in first instance, perfect. The redundancy of remedial 
characteristics is the sine qua non of efficient and reliable organization. It 
is in this perspective that the validity of the motion for new trial serves a 
desired function, and it should not be squeezed into nonexistence by a facile 
and fallacious contention about evidence with consideration denied as lacking a 
newly discovered character which, in fact, is empirically untrue. I would find 
to be properly presented here the necessity for inquiry within an actual hearing 
to establish if:

 
 

"`* * * the evidence, had 
it been disclosed to the jury which convicted defendant, and in light of all 
other evidence which that jury heard, [would] likely have created in the jury's 
mind a reasonable doubt which did not otherwise exist as to defendant's guilt.'" 
Keser v. State, Wyo., 737 P.2d 756, 764 (1987), quoting from 
State v. McDowell, 310 N.C. 61, 310 S.E.2d 301, 309 (1984).

 
 

See also, 
United States v. Peltier, 731 F.2d 550 (8th Cir. 1984); Smith v. United 
States, 635 F.2d 693 (8th Cir. 1980), cert. denied 450 U.S. 934, 101 S. Ct. 1397, 67 L. Ed. 2d 368 (1981); Lindhorst v. United States, 
585 F.2d 361 (8th Cir. 1978). For the standard to be applied, see 
United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S. Ct. 2392, 49 L. Ed. 2d 342 (1976); Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 79 S. Ct. 1173, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1217 (1959).

 
 

[¶31.]  For this reason alone, I would reverse 
the denial of the motion for new trial and would require an evidentiary hearing 
for determination of what happened to the evidence, and otherwise to consider in 
live form the countervailing expert-witness testimony as would afford a 
rational, factual basis to grant or deny a new trial.

 
 

[¶32.]  First in Keser, and now here again by 
this case, the majority posture affirmation on the relative ignorance of the 
trial court. My thesis here is not that a new trial should necessarily be 
granted here on the bland and partially developed record of one brief affidavit; 
rather, it is that the proper consideration is not to be defined as the 
justification for decision in ignorance instead of buttressed by actual hearing 
and live witness for informed decision. When serious liberty interests are 
invoked, factual, not formalistic, considerations should be intrinsic to 
constitutional decision. As in Keser, and now Cutbirth, the trial court, absent 
exposure to actual evidence (as was the next trial jury in Frias) will never 
have an opportunity to consider whether an innocent man was importunely 
sentenced. The issue is not embodied in majority statement that "[T]his 
conclusion can only be justified on the basis of a determination that the trial 
court's decision was unreasonable," but instead in absence of adequate 
exploration by hearing is simply unsupported in fact. If ever ignorance is 
bliss, it surely cannot ever promote justice as a societal function to be 
founded in knowledge. In context, I find the hearing denial to be not only 
unreasonable, but simply wrong. It is not the product of reason to know that you 
need knowledge to make thoughtful decisions; knowledge is intrinsic to reason. 
Without facts, you do not think, and exercised discretion becomes only arbitrary 
thoughtlessness. See People v. Jones, 157 Ill. App.3d 1006, 110 Ill.Dec. 895, 511 N.E.2d 1215, appeal denied 116 Ill. 2d 568, 113 Ill.Dec. 310, 515 N.E.2d 119 (1987), 
where the court went further and ordered a new trial based on post-trial facts 
calling into question probable guilt.

 
 

[¶33.]  Furthermore, in regard to what could have 
been discovered, these cases, as well as the procedural-default decisions of the 
United States Supreme Court, are simply impressing an unbearable one-chance-only 
burden on defense counsel and financing budgets. Counsel is required to be a 
mind reader, pathology expert, and community busybody. If reasonable initial 
effort will not suffice, unreasonable effort is required, and that criteria will 
magnify the cost of criminal defense. Redundancy in process is always cheaper 
and better than attempted perfection in first application. By this type of 
decision, this court directly taps the state treasury in exasperated defense 
cost, since reasonable effort will never be sufficient for publicly defended 
cases, but, even more distressing, denies or at least denigrates rights to 
justice to those who may try to pay their own costs of defense.

 
 

[¶34.]  Society is regularly bombarded with 
contention about costs of preventive medicine, but at least the confines of 
those costs are defined by the limitations of what may be done to one person. 
Preventive law as a one-chance-only imposed responsibility affords probability 
of exposure to almost limitless cost. In Keser, $50,000 in private investigation 
might not have revealed the classmates' knowledge and availability to be 
witnesses. This case by majority opinion personifies a request for counsel to 
anticipate that most if not all prosecution witnesses are uninformed or liars as 
intrinsic in required preparation criterion for the one-time opportunity. 
Self-corrective capability is not only less expensive, but more assured and 
efficient than perceived initial perfection which, of course, by the nature of 
human beings, is unachieved. In result, with rare exception, persons who are 
privately defended will not be properly defended, since few accused can pay for 
the costs required.3 

 
 

DISMISSAL OF THE 
POST-CONVICTION RELIEF PETITION

 
 

[¶35.]  Considered by the trial court as an 
aggravation factor for entry of the severe sentence, was Rickey Cutbirth's 
continued assertion that he was innocent.4 Through unnumbered efforts since 
trial and appeal, he has continued a consistent effort to support his search for 
claimed truth. Intrinsic to development of favorable hard evidence was a 
gunpowder residue demonstration on the clothes that he had worn which could 
specifically invalidate the expert testimony which had served as a principal 
essence of his conviction. This physical evidence was lost while within the 
custody of the police authorities and was not available to the 
post-conviction-discovered expert for his examination. In context, it perhaps 
does not matter, since this court refuses to subject the factual facade of 
conviction to the critique of the countervailing analysis of this recognized 
expert.

 
 

[¶36.]  I am singularly oppressed by the 
legislative function of this decision in three very specific particulars. The 
first is to substitute limiting rules of oxymoronic dimension to deny 
constitutional rights. The second is to then foreclose rights of the criminal 
defendant by attenuation of waiver derived from the unintended deficiency in 
counsel representation. Finally, one last resort to relief from incompetency or 
ineffectiveness of counsel is denied by application of a "concrete standard," 
and is self-determining in result since the denied constitutional right 
initially arose from unintended procedural default of trial or appellate 
counsel.

 
 

WAIVER

 
 

[¶37.]  This court is called, for Wyoming cases, to 
determine that the essential characteristic of the limitation of constitutional 
rights under post-conviction relief, other than issues which have been 
considered and determined in prior proceedings, is to be based on a theory of 
unintended waiver against the criminally charged individual. To the extent not 
previously acknowledged in rationale and reason, it is apparent that this 
supposition relates to the functioning of the counsel and not as a deliberative 
and controlled client decision. We find "waiver" described as:

 
 

"The intentional or 
voluntary relinquishment of a known right, or such conduct as warrants an 
inference of the relinquishment of such right, or when one dispenses with the 
performance of something he is entitled to act or when one in possession of any 
right, whether conferred by law or by contract, with full knowledge of the 
material facts, does or forbears to do something the doing of which or the 
failure of forbearance to do which is inconsistent with the right, or his 
intention to rely upon it. The renunciation, repudiation, abandonment, or 
surrender of some claim, right, privilege, or of the opportunity to take 
advantage of some defect, irregularity, or wrong." Black's Law Dictionary at 
1417 (5th ed. 1979).

 
 

[¶38.]  The context of the theory is more 
obviously to be appreciated if considered with the synonyms:

 
 

"abandonment, abandonment 
of a known right, abdication, abrogation, absolution, acquittal, act of 
relinquishing a right, clearance, deed of release, discharge, excuse, forgoing, 
giving up, intentional relinquishment, loss of right, release, relinquishment, 
renunciation, surrender, voluntary relinquishment." Burton's Legal Thesaurus at 
512 (1980).

 
 

[¶39.]  In the continuum of 
constitutional-interest dissertations of waiver found by repetition in 
subsequent citation and philosophic overlay (although in individual fact 
situation, neither is presently valid law), there are two idiomatic cases 
demonstrative of the philosophic bankruptcy of client-right waiver by attorney 
inadvertence, neglect, or ignorance.5 The first cases were State v. 
Daniels, 232 N.C. 196, 59 S.E.2d 430 (1950); Daniels v. Crawford, E.D.N.C., 99 F. Supp. 208 (1951); Daniels v. Allen, 192 F.2d 763 (4th Cir. 1951); and 
finally, in one of the more apparent comparisons of pragmatic result orientation 
from procedural protection by constitutional application, Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 558, 73 S. Ct. 397, 436, 97 L. Ed. 469, reh. denied 345 U.S. 946, 73 S. Ct. 827, 97 L. Ed. 1370 (1953), where the Frankfurter dissent 
delineated "jejune abstractions" which predominated in denied relief from the 
recognized miscarriage of justice.6 The factual inquiry in Daniels v. 
Allen, supra, was easily understood. Two young blacks in Pitt County, North 
Carolina (hardly a metropolitan area, and where racial numbers were not 
equivalently represented by voting capacity or asserted tax-bearing status), 
were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Serious constitutional 
questions were created in the trial process. Notice of appeal was timely filed, 
but counsel for defendant, in accommodation to local rules, tried to serve 
subsequent appeal papers on the state attorney on a Friday, but forsaking an 
appropriate mailing for a Monday mail delivery, arranged for document delivery 
of specifications on the following Monday when the state's attorney returned to 
his office from a Friday-through-Sunday, out-of-town weekend. Based on the 
belated Monday service, although the Friday mailing would have sufficed, the 
untimely service by counsel for the convicted defendant led to decision that the 
right of appeal had been waived as denying consideration of the intrinsic 
constitutional interests. In rejection of the appeal, the North Carolina Supreme 
Court expressed its opinion that a writ of error coram nobis might be had. As 
the next step in the same court, an error coram nobis petition was denied on the 
basis that it could not be a substitute for the appeal, with an accompanying 
note of pique that resort to the federal courts was in progress.

 
 

[¶40.]  Habeas corpus was dismissed in the 
federal court as "not available to petitioners on the procedural history." 99 F. Supp.  at 216, although additionally the federal judge, in the nature of the 
"good old boy" adjudicatory process, read a decision that was not written and 
affirmed constitutional rights on a substantive basis which later in text did 
not interest either the reviewing circuit court or the writers in the Supreme 
Court decision as actually applicable.

 
 

[¶41.]  In the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals 
review, on a two-to-one basis, the denial was affirmed in part because of denial 
of certiorari by the United States Supreme Court from the North Carolina Supreme 
Court decisions, and further affirmed as a waiver by failure of initial appeal 
when "lost by failure to comply with the reasonable rules of the state court." 
192 F.2d  at 766. It is noteworthy as analyzed by the dissent:

 
 

"There is no attempt on 
the part of the State of North 
Carolina in the pending appeal to show that there was 
not a gross violation of the constitutional rights of the prisoners in the trial 
court. The state's argument proceeds upon the ground that the appellants lost 
any right to a review of the action of the trial court of Pitt County when their 
attorneys failed to conform meticulously to the local procedural requirements." 
Daniels v. Allen, 192 F.2d  at 771, Soper, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

 
 

[¶42.]  Daniels then came to the United States 
Supreme Court for consideration with two other cases where, in the 118-page 
opinion of Brown v. Allen, supra, Justice Reed, writing for the court, found the 
procedural defect in appeal decisive. A majority of the court, in distinction to 
the opinion of Reed (written by Justice Frankfurter), did clearly determine that 
the denial of certiorari had no legal significance when a later request of 
habeas corpus was made. Justice Frankfurter then wrote an academically literate 
and adjudicatorily logical dissent dissecting the waiver application - jejune 
abstractions. It is noteworthy to reflect, in considering Daniels as the 
patriarch of procedural waiver, that the intrinsic, substantive questions of 
coerced confessions and discriminatory processes for selection of jurors was not 
only thereafter corrected, but that the procedural waiver appellate question, as 
an abject absurdity, was impaled and extinguished in Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S. Ct. 830, 83 L. Ed. 2d 821, reh. denied 470 U.S. 1065, 105 S. Ct. 1783, 84 L. Ed. 2d 841 (1985). See White, Federal Habeas Corpus: 
The Impact of the Failure to Assert a Constitutional Claim at Trial, 58 
Va.L.Rev. 67 (1972).

 
 

[¶43.]  The second authors of procedural default, 
were the writers in State v. Thompsett, 65 Ohio.App. 378, 29 N.E.2d 967 (1940), 
and Tompsett v. State of Ohio, 146 F.2d 95 (6th 
Cir. 1944), cert. denied 324 U.S. 869, 65 S. Ct. 916, 89 L. Ed. 1424 
(1945), in which, with some reason, it is addressed in stated facts that 
actually defendants probably were not guilty but were caught up in a very bad 
false identification. Not to be considered as an issue was the clear failure of 
reasonable legal counseling, including failure to timely file appeal documents; 
but rather, articulated was the waiver by acquiescence, or "you have to raise 
hell with your lawyer during trial" principle as invoked to even include waiver 
of jury trial:

 
 

"The concept of this rule 
is that the lack of skill and incompetency of the attorney is imputed to the 
defendant who employed him, the acts of the attorney thus becoming those of his 
client and so recognized and accepted by the court, unless the defendant 
repudiates them by making known to the court at the time his objection to or 
lack of concurrence in them. A defendant cannot seemingly acquiesce in his 
attorney's defense of him or his lack of it and, after the trial has resulted 
adversely to defendant, obtain a new trial because of the incompetency, 
negligence, fraud or unskillfulness of his attorney." Tompsett v. State of 
Ohio, 146 F.2d  
at 98.

 
 

[¶44.]  The Ohio 
dilemma in developing history since Tompsett, and more particularly Young v. 
Ragen, 337 U.S. 235, 69 S. Ct. 1073, 93 L. Ed. 1333 (1949), and Case v. Nebraska, 381 U.S. 336, 85 S. Ct. 1486, 14 L. Ed. 2d 422 (1965), was comprehensively considered in Comment, The 
Postconviction Review Dilemma in Ohio, 44 Ohio 
St.L.J. 530 (1983), which justifies application to the law of Wyoming and the present 
court's opinion:

 
 

"In its Standards 
Relating to Post-Conviction Remedies the American Bar Association distinguishes 
between waiver as a rule of finality of judgment, that is, issues not presented 
at a specified time or in a specified way are said to have been waived, and the 
principle that a party to a criminal action can, with binding effect, make a 
knowing and informed choice to forego certain rights. The former is procedural, 
while the latter is a corollary of the law creating the right. The significance 
of the distinction comes into sharp focus when a federal constitutional right is 
considered in a state postconviction proceeding: what constitutes a waiver in 
the sense of a voluntary relinquishment is a question of federal constitutional 
law, while the scope of a prior judgment is a question of state procedural law." 
Id. at 
544.

 
 

"Notwithstanding 
federal-state disparities, closing the doors of both the Ohio and the federal 
courts bespeaks a policy that values efficient judicial proceedings more highly 
than either the scrupulous protection of individual rights or the maintenance of 
safeguards within the criminal process. Without legislative action, the 
immediate results will be increased risk that the innocent will be convicted and 
that a defense attorney's error, inexperience, lack of diligence, or tactical 
decision will produce an irremediable forfeiture of rights." Id. at 567.

 
 

[¶45.]  As illustrated in other texts, the 
federal system direction in recent years is to a result-oriented disregard of 
basic and fundamental right protection as seen by Justice Brennan in Engle v. 
Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 144, 102 S. Ct. 1558, 71 L. Ed. 2d 783, reh. denied 457 U.S. 1141, 102 S. Ct. 2976, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1361 (1982), Justice Brennan dissenting:

 
 

"The Court's analysis is 
completely result-oriented, and represents a noteworthy exercise in * * * 
judicial activism * * *."

 
 

[¶46.]  Unfortunately, in absolving lawyering 
failure by the arcane theory of procedural default, I see no prospect in the 
opinion of this court that we go in the direction of decreasing the frequency of 
these constitutional-right forfeitures, or that we go forward in the promotion 
of professional skill, by shifting the burden of constitutional protection to 
our state courts as arguably justified to the extent that we in the state 
judiciary should be best situated to decrease the frequency of procedural 
defaults and to promote professional skill. Post-conviction Review Dilemma, 
supra at 567, footnoting Comment, Federal Habeas Corpus Review of 
Unintentionally Defaulted Constitutional Claims, 130 U.Pa.L.Rev. 981 (1982). The 
University of 
Pennsylvania Comment 
observed:

 
 

"Analysis of why 
procedural defaults occur suggests that individual attorneys could eliminate at 
least some of them. For example, if an attorney could work longer hours without 
ceasing to be effective, the attorney could avoid those defaults caused by 
spending too little time per case: the attorney could simply put in more time. 
Attorneys could likewise avoid those defaults caused by lack of knowledge of 
recent legal developments by undertaking self-imposed continuing education 
regimens, such as reading professional journals or attending seminars." 
Id. at 
1006.

 
 

"Rather than branding as 
ineffective the assistance of any attorney who defaults a valid constitutional 
claim, the courts are likely to find that some unintentional defaults do not 
constitute ineffective assistance of counsel." Id. at 1009.

 
 

The substance of the 
analysis is that, in using a reasonableness standard (or its equivalent), 
ineffectiveness should be defined in terms of normal attorney 
conduct:

 
 

"The courts could take a 
selective ineffectiveness approach in three ways. First, they could enunciate a 
standard, such as reasonableness, against which procedural defaults would be 
judged; if the default is unreasonable then the attorney has provided 
ineffective assistance. Second, a court could identify `special' rights, default 
of which would always constitute ineffectiveness; for example, the court could 
say that default of a valid fourth amendment claim always constitutes 
ineffectiveness in a case in which the prosecution introduces the fruits of a 
warrantless search. Third, the courts could protect constitutional rights 
against default by requiring the states to employ certain of the tools at the 
state's command to decrease the incidence of procedural defaults." Id. at 1010.

 
 

[¶47.]  The present difficulty in judicial 
analysis and disposition is not raised in a case where the prior appeal, if any, 
examined constitutional issues and denied relief as then would constitute res 
judicata, stare decisis, collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion for a 
later-instituted post-conviction-relief proceeding which could only reanalyze 
what had already been determined in first trial and appeal. We are here faced with what was not 
considered and was not decided as the essential examination in this litigation, 
and for my dissent.

 
 

[¶48.]  In practical fact, then, the concept of 
waiver is more appropriately defined as neglect, ignorance, unintended mistake, 
or defective decision of the attorney. It should not be ignored, in the words of 
Justice Frankfurter, by "jejune abstraction." Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S.  at 558, 73 S. Ct.  at 436. It must 
also be recognized in the proper concept of the word that choice and waiver are 
not synonymous. In reality, most of the decisions made are justified as 
strategic choices when, in fact, empirically, from the standpoint of the welfare 
of the client, they represent waiver. In recognition of the thesis presented by 
the court, it is appropriate to supply the essence to the concept, rather than 
reliance only on the disingenuous word "waiver."

 
 

[¶49.]  If the idealism of legal precedence is 
relevant to jurisprudence, it is pertinent to note that Justice Black spoke in 
similar terms 50 years ago:

 
 

"* * * A waiver is 
ordinarily an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or 
privilege. The determination of whether there has been an intelligent waiver of 
the right to counsel must depend, in each case, upon the particular facts and 
circumstances surrounding that case, including the background, experience, and 
conduct of the accused." Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S. Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L. Ed. 1461 (1938).

 
 

[¶50.]  In reviewing the development of 
post-conviction relief, Larry W. Yackle, Postconviction Remedies, pp. 16-17 
(1981), a foundational text, observes:

 
 

"* * * [I]n many states 
habeas relief was denied when the prisoner's claims were not, but might have 
been, raised at trial or on direct review. This was, of course, to rest upon an 
inferential waiver theory - reading the prisoner's procedural default as an 
implicit waiver of the opportunity to litigate a claim, or, indeed, the 
underlying right itself. In truth, the theory had little to do with waiver and 
much to do with forfeiture."

 
 

[¶51.]  Historians, sociologists, and 
philosophers opine that we of this democratic nation are wont to create mirages, 
facades or hero images as substitutes for reality. It is in the nature of such a 
most terribly unjustified fallacy that the criminal defendant is condemned by 
the action, aptitudes, and competency of his counsel. Originally, this principle 
arose out of theories of agency in that the client won or lost based on what his 
attorney, as his agent, did or did not do. However, the application of the 
principle in civil law has different characteristics, and particularly so since 
the agent can be liable to the principal for accrued liability caused by 
negligence measured in recovery of damage. But in criminal context, we do not 
say that the incompetent attorney goes to jail to serve the sentence for the 
improperly represented defendant. An extended and comprehensive analysis of 
waiver is found in Comment, Criminal Waiver: The Requirements of Personal 
Participation, Competence, and Legitimate State Interest, 54 Cal.L.Rev. 1262 
(1966).

 
 

[¶52.]  So what, then, as a fiction without 
logic, reason, or justification, is now to be substituted for contention that 
conduct of the attorney constitutes constitutional-rights waiver by the client? 
Only if the strongest criteria of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, reh. denied 467 U.S. 1267, 104 S. Ct. 3562, 82 L. Ed. 2d 864 (1984), or similarly constituted nonresponsibility, insulative legal 
competency protection theories can be breached, will the individual have process 
afforded those constitutional guarantees. Almost never, or at least seldom, does 
a criminal defendant knowledgeably waive anything. The decision by intent or 
ignorance in doing or neglecting is that of the attorney. As a horrifying 
example, see Laing v. State, supra, 746 P.2d 1247. We reach the status described 
in Rosenberg, Jettisoning Fay v. Noia: Procedural Defaults by Reasonably 
Incompetent Counsel, 62 Minn.L.Rev. 341, 448 (1978), characterizing the 
attorney-client relationship in a criminal case as one in which the servant is 
omnipotent and the master subservient. Cf. Johnson v. State, Wyo., 562 P.2d 1294, 1300 (1977), where this court, in discussing ineffective counsel, observed 
that the client had the right to determine whether to plead guilty, waive a jury 
trial, or testify, and "[a]ll other areas, including the decision whether to 
call or not to call a witness, are in the control of the defendant's counsel, who is the master of the proceedings." 
(Emphasis added.)

 
 

POST-CONVICTION RELIEF 
STATUTES

 
 

[¶53.]  The purposes of state legislative 
enactment or judicial promulgation of rules on post-conviction-relief 
proceedings was to establish a defined, noncumbersome process to decide 
constitutional issues by providing a state remedy to minimize trial of state 
criminal issues in federal proceedings under the United States Constitution. 
Raper, Post Conviction Remedies, 19 Wyo. L.J. 213 (1965). Most states have some 
form of relief mechanism which may involve different characteristics (as does 
Wyoming), including statutory adoption, post-conviction proceedings by supreme 
court rules, or augmented or differentiated utilization of habeas corpus by 
statute or rule. States with post-conviction-relief statutes include, for 
example: Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, 
Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, 
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. 
Among the states which utilize a court rule, sometimes solely or in conjunction 
with a statute, are, as examples: Alaska, 
Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, 
Florida, Idaho, Illinois, 
Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, 
Utah, and Wisconsin. See Larry W. Yackle, Postconviction 
Remedies, supra, § 13 at 65. A comprehensive analysis of justifications for and 
divergences among state post-conviction-relief processes is found in Documentary 
Supplement, State Post-Conviction Remedies and Federal Habeas Corpus, 12 Wm. 
& Mary L.Rev. 149 (1970).

 
 

[¶54.]  The Wyoming post-conviction statute first 
enacted by the Wyoming legislature by Ch. 63, S.L. of Wyoming 1961,7 now § 7-14-101, W.S. 1977, has 
continued past Title 7 renovation, through 1987 revision, essentially in its 
original form. Criteria for relief include:

 
 

(a) incarceration for a 
felony conviction, § 7-14-101(b), W.S. 1977;

 
 

(b) commenced within five 
(5) years of conviction and sentencing, § 7-14-101(c), W.S. 1977;

 
 

(c) any claim of 
substantial denial of constitutional rights not raised in the original or an 
amended petition is waived, Bibbins v. State, Wyo.,741 P.2d 115 (1987);

 
 

(d) by assertion "that in 
the proceedings which resulted in his conviction there was a substantial denial 
of his rights under the constitution of the United 
States or the state of Wyoming, or both," § 7-14-101(b), W.S. 
1977.

 
 

[¶55.]  In Wyoming, embodied within the 
proceedings and discernible only from the case for which the rule was derived, 
Hopkinson v. State, Wyo., 664 P.2d 43, cert. denied 464 U.S. 908, 104 S. Ct. 262, 
78 L. Ed. 2d 246 (1983), there is a further criterion that the proceeding is 
ancillary to the initial plea disposition or final conviction and not an 
independent, constitutional-right ascertainment proceeding. The improvidence of 
that decision, made specifically to deny application of a peremptory challenge 
otherwise available to change judges, is not here presented.

 
 

[¶56.]  Post-conviction relief was designed to 
dispose of claims of a constitutional nature on the merits and not with 
technical-issue avoidance which may to some seem to provide an immediate, easy 
answer but usually only serves to prolong judicial inquiry.8 Confusion is magnified when the 
specialized post-conviction process is excised by repeal, as it has been in one 
state, South Dakota, with concurrent introduction of activated habeas corpus and 
reinstated coram nobis to address the recognized constitutional requirements, 
Comment, Coram Nobis as a Post-Conviction Remedy: Flight of the Phoenix?, 32 
S.D.L.Rev. 300 (1987), which may invoke "an increase in confusion and 
obfuscation of an area of the law already sufficiently complex and ambiguous." 
In the article, the author discusses what he describes as the vaporous and 
amorphous common-law remedy of coram nobis as the less-than-perfect replacement. 
Id. at 321.9

 
 

HISTORY OF STATE 
REQUIREMENTS TO AVOID INITIAL FEDERAL COURT REVIEW

 
 

[¶57.]  The basic law as an adjudicatory standard 
relating to the absence of an adequate state remedy to deny federal habeas 
corpus was defined in Young v. Ragen, supra, 337 U.S. 235, 69 S. Ct. 1073, and 
Case v. Nebraska, supra, 381 U.S. 336, 85 S. Ct. 1486. Whatever has occurred 
within the tumultuous counter-movements since 1949, the basic standard remains 
uninhibited as determining that if a state process is not available to consider 
liberty issues under the United States Constitution in criminal conviction, 
exhaustion of state remedies is not presented and resort to the federal 
processes in the nature of habeas corpus or coram nobis is immediately 
available. Chief Justice Vinson, writing for the court in Ragen, 
determined:

 
 

"* * * The doctrine of 
exhaustion of state remedies, to which this Court has required the scrupulous 
adherence of all federal courts, Ex parte Hawk, 321 U.S. 114 [64 S. Ct. 448, 88 L. Ed. 572 (1944)] and cases cited, presupposes that some adequate state remedy 
exists. We recognize the difficulties with which the Illinois Supreme Court is 
faced in adapting available state procedures to the requirement that prisoners 
be given some clearly defined method by which they may raise claims of denial of 
federal rights. Nevertheless, that requirement must be met." Young v. Ragen, 337 U.S.  at 238-239, 69 S. Ct.  at 
1074-75.

 
 

[¶58.]  Re-emphasized in Case v. Nebraska, supra, it was 
stated by per curiam opinion and by concurrence of Justice Clark in recognizing 
the contribution of Ragen to the passage of state postconviction 
remedies:

 
 

"* * * `The doctrine of 
exhaustion of state remedies, to which this Court has required the scrupulous 
adherence of all federal courts . . . presupposes that some adequate state 
remedy exists.'" 381 U.S.  at 
338, 85 S. Ct.  at 1487, quoting from Young v. Ragen, 337 U.S.  at 238-239, 
69 S. Ct.  at 1074.

 
 

"Strangely enough there 
has been little light thrown on the necessity for more effective postconviction 
remedies in the States. In 1958 the Burton Committee reported out a preliminary 
draft of findings in which it stated

 
 

"`that the law of state 
post-conviction process in many states was wholly inadequate to cope with the 
demands now being placed upon it. In some jurisdictions prisoners were 
altogether precluded from direct access to the courts. [Cochran v. Kansas, 316 U.S. 255, 86 L. Ed. 1453, 62 S. Ct. 1068 (1942); 
Dowd v. Cook, 340 U.S. 206, 95 L. Ed. 215, 71 S. Ct. 262, 
10 A.L.R.2d 784 (1951).] . . . In many more, the procedures recognized by state 
law failed to provide genuine opportunities for testing constitutional issues of 
the most numerous and important types. The result was that prisoners often 
failed to obtain hearings on their allegations in the state courts. This, in 
turn, increased the number of petitions in state and federal courts and was 
generally productive of frustrations in all persons concerned with the 
process.'

 
 

* * * * * *

 
 

"I hope that the various 
States will follow the lead of Illinois, 
Nebraska, Maryland, North Carolina, 
Maine, Oregon 
and Wyoming in 
providing this modern procedure for testing federal claims in the state courts 
and thus relieve the federal courts of this everincreasing burden." (Emphasis 
added.) 381 U.S.  at 339-340, 85 S. Ct.  at 
488-89.

 
 

[¶59.]  Justice Brennan, in concurrence, with 
recognition of Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S. Ct. 745, 9 L. Ed. 2d 770 (1963), and 
Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S. Ct. 822, 9 L. Ed. 2d 837 
(1963), further admonished:

 
 

"None can view with 
satisfaction the channeling of a large part of state criminal business to 
federal trial courts. If adequate state procedures, presently all too scarce, 
were generally adopted, much would be done to remove the irritant of 
participation by the federal district courts in state criminal procedure." 381 U.S.  at 345-346, 85 S. Ct.  at 
492.

 
 

[¶60.]  It is apparent that historically Ragen 
and Case did not spring uncultivated from barren and unplowed terrain. Justices 
Holmes and Hughes, in the 1915 dissent in Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 35 S. Ct. 582, 59 L. Ed. 969 
(1915), recognized that constitutional-rights violations required intervention 
of federal court examination. That dissent became a majority standard in 
Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86, 43 S. Ct. 265, 67 L. Ed. 543 (1923), and then the safeguard of the liberty obligation 
of the federal judiciary was intrinsically woven into the fabric of our society 
by Justice Black in Johnson v. Zerbst, supra, 304 U.S. 458, 466-467, 58 S. Ct. 1019, 1024:10

 
 

"`* * * [A] prisoner in 
custody pursuant to the final judgment of a state court of criminal jurisdiction 
may have a judicial inquiry in a court of the United States into the very truth 
and substance of the causes of his detention, although it may become necessary 
to look behind and beyond the record of his conviction to a sufficient extent to 
test the jurisdiction of the state court to proceed to judgment against him. . . 
.

 
 

"`. . . it is open to the 
courts of the United 
States upon an application for a writ of habeas 
corpus to look beyond forms and inquire into the very substance of the matter . 
. .'"

 
 

[¶61.]  This principle, further recognized in 
Glasser v. United 
States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S. Ct. 457, 86 L. Ed. 680, reh. denied sub nom. Kretske v. United 
States, 315 U.S. 827, 62 S. Ct. 629, 86 L. Ed. 1222 
(1942), was more specifically and emphatically applied in Ex parte Hawk, 321 U.S. 114, 64 S. Ct. 448, 88 L. Ed. 572 
(1944):

 
 

"* * * [W]here resort to 
state court remedies has failed to afford a full and fair adjudication of the 
federal contentions raised, either because the state affords no remedy * * * or 
because in the particular case the remedy afforded by state law proves in 
practice unavailable or seriously inadequate, * * * a federal court should 
entertain his petition for habeas corpus, else he would be remediless." 321 U.S.  at 118, 64 S. Ct.  at 
450.

 
 

See also, White v. Ragen, 
324 U.S. 760, 65 S. Ct. 978, 89 L. Ed. 1348, reh. denied 326 U.S. 807, 66 S. Ct. 133, 90 L. Ed. 492 
(1945).11

 
 

FROM YOUNG v. RAGEN TO 
WAINWRIGHT v. SYKES CAUSE AND PREJUDICE

 
 

[¶62.]  Once the Supreme Court had defined the 
federal right to test state conviction by habeas corpus, the arena of conflict 
embodying state-system procedural default moved from the Ragen decision of 1949 
to new examinations of by-pass, waiver, or forfeiture, as an attack on any 
conclusionary examination in the federal court of the claimed constitutional 
violations which had occurred in state court conviction. This campaign, now 
reaching a Battle of the Wilderness status, is 
where appellant Cutbirth, in this case, seeks to avoid initial forfeiture of his 
constitutional right deleted from the state court proceeding, which later may 
establish further waiver to deny future federal court protection of 
United 
States constitutional rights. Consequently, 
what was not considered by the state court by procedural default waiver may also 
be foreclosed from federal court constitutional protection.

 
 

[¶63.]  Following Brown v. Allen, supra, 344 U.S. 443, 73 S. Ct. 397, the Warren court examination of federal habeas corpus review 
of the state court constitutional decisional process was introduced, and the 
1962 trilogy followed, Townsend v. Sain, supra; Fay v. Noia, supra; and Sanders 
v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 83 S. Ct. 1068, 10 L. Ed. 2d 148 (1963), as 
accommodative to the seminal decision of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S. Ct. 792, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799 (1963), which resolved rights to counsel in state 
courts for criminal defense. Townsend, which involved a barbiturate and 
truth-serum-derived confession, was reversed on federal court inquiry after 
state conviction. The Supreme Court there established criteria and requirements 
for these federal court hearings, including six elements many times since 
cited:

 
 

"* * * If (1) the merits 
of the factual dispute were not resolved in the state hearing; (2) the state 
factual determination is not fairly supported by the record as a whole; (3) the 
fact-finding procedure employed by the state court was not adequate to afford a 
full and fair hearing; (4) there is a substantial allegation of newly discovered 
evidence; (5) the material facts were not adequately developed at the 
state-court hearing; or (6) for any reason it appears that the state trier of 
fact did not afford the habeas applicant a full and fair fact hearing." Townsend 
v. Sain, 372 U.S.  at 313, 83 S. Ct.  at 
757.

 
 

[¶64.]  In Fay, Justice Brennan considered denial 
of post-conviction coram-nobis relief on grounds of failure to appeal state 
conviction and the post-Ragen waiver as an inferred forfeiture decision. That 
standard, which now continues, if at all, in intermediate and probably 
indeterminate status, precipitated the procedural default philosophic conflict. 
Fay was founded in intended 
relinquishment, therein introductively noted, and since to be observed 
emphatically:

 
 

"* * * Our development of 
the law of federal habeas corpus has been attended, seemingly, with some backing 
and filling." Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S.  at 412, 83 S. Ct.  at 
834.

 
 

[¶65.]  In case substance, analyzing comity and 
abstention as related to procedural default, there was born the only fleeting 
condiment of deliberate by-pass:

 
 

"A practical appraisal of 
the state interest here involved plainly does not justify the federal courts' 
enforcing on habeas corpus a doctrine of forfeitures under the guise of applying 
the adequate state-ground rule. We fully grant * * * that the exigencies of 
federalism warrant a limitation whereby the federal judge has the discretion to 
deny relief to one who has deliberately sought to subvert or evade the orderly 
adjudication of his federal defenses in the state courts. Surely no stricter 
rule is a realistic necessity." Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S.  at 433, 83 S. Ct.  at 846.

 
 

"* * * At all events we 
wish it clearly understood that the standard here put forth depends on the 
considered choice of the petitioner. * * * A choice made by counsel not 
participated in by the petitioner does not automatically bar relief. Nor does a 
state court's finding of waiver bar independent determination of the question by 
the federal courts on habeas, for waiver affecting federal rights is a federal 
question." Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S.  at 439, 83 S. Ct.  at 
849.

 
 

[¶66.]  In Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U.S. 443, 446-447, 85 S. Ct. 564, 567, 
13 L. Ed. 2d 408, reh. denied 380 U.S. 926, 85 S. Ct. 878, 13 L. Ed. 2d 813 (1965), 
which followed, the court recognized:

 
 

"* * * [I]mportant to 
distinguish between state substantive grounds and state procedural 
grounds.

 
 

* * * * * *

 
 

"* * * [A] litigant's 
procedural defaults in state proceedings do not prevent vindication of his 
federal rights unless the State's insistence on compliance with its procedural 
rule serves a legitimate state interest."

 
 

Deliberate by-pass was 
again asserted as a foundation for forfeiture.

 
 

[¶67.]  Following Case v. Nebraska, supra, of 1965, and the end of the Warren court, the Burger 
court, embodying a changed majority, annihilated Fay, but not on the underlying 
thesis of Ragen, which has survived in full effect. Building upon the abstention 
and comity cases of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S. Ct. 746, 27 L. Ed. 2d 669 
(1971); Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 91 S. Ct. 764, 27 L. Ed. 2d 688 (1971); 
Boyle v. Landry, 401 U.S. 77, 91 S. Ct. 758, 27 L. Ed. 2d 696 (1971); Perez v. 
Ledesma, 401 U.S. 82, 91 S. Ct. 674, 27 L. Ed. 2d 701 (1971); Dyson v. Stein, 401 U.S. 200, 91 S. Ct. 769, 27 L. Ed. 2d 781 (1971); and Byrne v. Karalexis, 401 U.S. 216, 91 S. Ct. 777, 27 L. Ed. 2d 792 (1971), followed by Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S. Ct. 1827, 36 L. Ed. 2d 439 (1973), the newly constituted court had 
opportunity to recede from Fay in Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 96 S. Ct. 1691, 48 L. Ed. 2d 126, reh. denied 426 U.S. 954, 96 S. Ct. 3182, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1194 
(1976), in finding unknowing waiver by defendant accompanied by either 
ignorance, incompetence, or cowardice of counsel from trial appearance in jail 
garments in admitted violation of constitutional rights. Brennan, in dissent, 
recognized the emergence of implied waiver of constitutional rights and the 
demise of the Johnson v. Zerbst voluntary-waiver test. Thus was cultivated the 
present retreat from substantive-issue decision to incompetency or 
ineffectiveness-of-counsel inquiry, with all the pitfalls and idiosyncrasies 
soon to be developed. Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052; United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S. Ct. 2039, 80 L. Ed. 2d 657 (1984).

 
 

[¶68.]  The watershed then arrived in 
adjudicatory plateau, perceived by some, including this writer, to be 
characterized as adjudicatory aberration, where the oxymoron developed 
full-flower in Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S. Ct. 2497, 53 L. Ed. 2d 594, 
reh. denied 434 U.S. 880, 98 S. Ct. 241, 54 L. Ed. 2d 163 (1977), where the Fay 
deliberate by-pass was by-passed or superceded by substitution of the present 
rule of cause and prejudice which had been enunciated earlier for application to 
federal court proceedings involving federal court convictions in Davis v. United 
States, 411 U.S. 233, 93 S. Ct. 1577, 36 L. Ed. 2d 216 (1973). That case, in 
defining that absent a showing of cause for defendant (attorney failure to 
challenge the composition of the grand jury before trial) but also "actual 
prejudice" id. at 245, 93 S. Ct.  at 1584, decreed that a right to reversal was 
not demonstrated. The application of Davis to state cases had been foreshadowed 
by Francis v. Henderson, 425 U.S. 536, 96 S. Ct. 1708, 48 L. Ed. 2d 149 (1976), in 
holding that pretrial failure to object to grand-jury composition in state court 
constituted waiver, as would be the identical result in initial federal court 
proceedings. Consequently, by derivation of an operational rule of the federal 
court from Davis to equality and no more in 
Henderson, a 
rule of application for procedural default in all character was graduated to 
Sykes. What was cause for forfeiture with unintended waiver was not there 
defined or in more recent cases established with specificity, although the 
general standard adduced is that the defendant is impaled with procedural 
default for unintended forfeiture arising from the negligence, ignorance, or 
incompetency of counsel unless afforded relief by proof of cause and prejudice. 
Cause by definition is seldom found, since the misadventure of the attorney's 
conduct is, in these cases, unintended.

 
 

"The 
`cause'-and-`prejudice' exception of the Francis rule will afford an adequate 
guarantee, we think, that the rule will not prevent a federal habeas court from 
adjudicating for the first time the federal constitutional claim of a defendant 
who in the absence of such an adjudication will be the victim of a miscarriage 
of justice. Whatever precise content may be given those terms by later cases, we 
feel confident in holding without further elaboration that they do not exist 
here. Respondent has advanced no explanation whatever for his failure to object 
at trial, and, as the proceeding unfolded, the trial judge is certainly not to 
be faulted for failing to question the admission of the confession himself." 
Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S.  at 90-91, 97 S. Ct.  at 
2508-09.

 
 

Factually, the court 
there recognized in statement of fact that the obvious and essential 
responsibility of counsel to object to challengeable statement introduction was 
not met.

 
 

"At no time during the 
trial, however, was the admissibility of any of respondent's statements 
challenged by his counsel on the ground that respondent had not understood the 
Miranda warnings. Nor did the trial judge question their admissibility on his 
own motion or hold a factfinding hearing bearing on that issue." 433 U.S.  at 75, 97 S. Ct.  at 
2500.

 
 

Justice Burger, in 
concurrence, spoke to a differentiation of intrial decision where a "`knowing 
and intelligent waiver' is simply inapplicable." Id. at 94, 97 S. Ct.  at 2510. Justice Brennan, 
in dissent joined by Justice Marshall, in analyzing both the court's opinion and 
concurrences, recognized the essential question:

 
 

"Punishing a lawyer's unintentional errors by closing the 
federal courthouse door to his client is both a senseless and misdirected method 
of deterring the slighting of state rules. It is senseless because unplanned and 
unintentional action of any kind generally is not subject to deterrence; and, to 
the extent that it is hoped that a threatened sanction addressed to the defense 
will induce greater care and caution on the part of trial lawyers, thereby 
forestalling negligent conduct or error, the potential loss of all valuable 
state remedies would be sufficient to this end. And it is a misdirected sanction 
because even if the penalization of incompetence or carelessness will encourage 
more thorough legal training and trial preparation, the habeas applicant, as 
opposed to his lawyer, hardly is the proper recipient of such a penalty." 
(Emphasis added.) Id. at 113, 97 S. Ct.  at 2520.

 
 

[¶69.]  Finality for a while, until the 
inevitable reaction and restoration of constitutional protection which will 
sometime hereafter occur in the federal jurisdiction, came in Engle v. Isaac, 
supra, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S. Ct. 1558, where failure to object to the 
constitutionally prescribed burden-of-proof/self-defense instruction was 
considered. Forfeiture of constitutional right, in direct concept of counsel 
ignorance, neglect, or incompetency, was directly presented as a justification 
for decision. Demonstrating something less than applied trial knowledge of court 
processes, the rule is advanced:

 
 

"We note at the outset 
that the futility of presenting an objection to the state courts cannot alone 
constitute cause for a failure to object at trial. If a defendant perceives a 
constitutional claim and believes it may 
find favor in the federal courts, he may not bypass the state courts simply 
because he thinks they will be unsympathetic to the claim. Even a state court 
that has previously rejected a constitutional argument may decide, upon 
reflection, that the contention is valid." (Emphasis added.) 456 U.S.  at 130, 102 S. Ct.  at 
1573.

 
 

Judicial activism and 
constitutional denigration were well illuminated in comment by Justice 
Brennan:

 
 

"* * * In my view, the 
Sykes standard is misguided and insupportable in any context. But if it is to be 
suffered to exist at all, it should be limited to the arguable peripheries of 
the trial process: It should not be allowed to insulate from all judicial review 
all violations of the most fundamental rights of the accused." 456 U.S.  at 151, 102 S. Ct.  at 
1584.

 
 

United 
States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S. Ct. 1584, 71 L. Ed. 2d 816, reh. denied 456 U.S. 1001, 102 S. Ct. 2287, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1296 (1982), of the same date, afforded a similar result in rejecting a 
plain-error thesis for reversal. Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 104 S. Ct. 2901, 82 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1984) followed. By review of trial-time failure to 
raise the unconstitutionality of a jury instruction on burden of proof several 
years before any successful challenge of the rule had been made, the instruction 
at trial time had been proved by the state court in North Carolina for a 
century. Mullany v. Wilber, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S. Ct. 1881, 44 L. Ed. 2d 508 (1975) was yet six years away, and served to invalidate the reversed 
burden-of-proof instruction. Cause and prejudice were found under Engle and 
Frady by the circuit court upon remand, and the Supreme Court affirmed, in an 
opinion by Justice Brennan, with the novelty issue as cause. Justice Rehnquist, 
in strong disagreement, contended that trial counsel should have anticipated the 
later change in the broad-based United States Supreme Court decisions on burden 
of proof.

 
 

[¶70.]  Procedural default was discerned by 
Justice Stevens in a case involving failure of counsel to more diligently attack 
a questioned juror, Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S. Ct. 844, 83 L. Ed. 2d 841 (1985), although the Rehnquist opinion decided the substantive issue of the 
death-penalty-qualified juror. The Stevens ratio decidendi sounded in 
intentional strategy as attorney forfeiture of rights of client.12 See Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S. Ct. 2450, 61 L. Ed. 2d 39 (1979); Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 97 S. Ct. 2319, 53 L. Ed. 2d 281 
(1977); Mullany v. Wilber, supra; and discussion of Justice Marshall in dissent 
in denial of certiorari involving constitutionally affected counsel, Strickland 
v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct.  at 2055; Waye v. Morris, 469 U.S. 908, 105 S. Ct. 282, 83 L. Ed. 2d 218 (1984); and further in certiorari denial, 
Justice Brennan in Moran v. Ohio, 469 U.S. 948, 105 S. Ct. 350, 83 L. Ed. 2d 285 
(1984). The Sykes importunity of implied forfeiture invoked by counsel decision 
is not unnoticed in Tenth Circuit opinion comment. See Dutton v. Brown, 812 F.2d 593 (10th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Dutton v. Maynard, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S. Ct. 116, 98 L. Ed. 2d 74 (1987); Andrews v. Shulsen, 802 F.2d 1256 (10th Cir. 
1986); Wolff v. United States, 737 F.2d 737 (10th Cir. 1984); Hux v. Murphy, 733 F.2d 737 (10th Cir. 1984), overruled on other grounds sub nom. Wiley v. Rayl, 
767 F.2d 679 (10th Cir. 1985).

 
 

[¶71.]  The instability on the subject in the 
United States Supreme Court is demonstrated by three even more recent cases 
decided within the past two years. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 106 S. Ct. 2639, 91 L. Ed. 2d 397 (1986) reversed the en banc decision of the Fourth Circuit 
in Carrier v. Hutto, 754 F.2d 520 (4th Cir. 1985), where the omission error of 
defense counsel in state court appeal was in apprisal of claimed error of denial 
by the trial judge of defendant's right to examine victim's statements. The 
majority concluded that omission "inadvertence" of defense counsel rather than 
deliberate choice as some kind of planned strategy would not in itself 
constitute cause within the procedural default thesis of Engle:

 
 

"We think, then, that the 
question of cause for a procedural default does not turn on whether counsel 
erred or on the kind of error counsel may have made. So long as a defendant is 
represented by counsel whose performance is not constitutionally ineffective 
under the standard established in Strickland v. Washington, supra, we discern no inequity in 
requiring him to bear the risk of attorney error that results in a procedural 
default. Instead, we think that the existence of cause for a procedural default 
must ordinarily turn on whether the prisoner can show that some objective factor 
external to the defense impeded counsel's efforts to comply with the State's 
procedural rule. Without attempting an exhaustive catalog of such objective 
impediments to compliance with a procedural rule, we note that a showing that 
the factual or legal basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel, 
see Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S., at 16, 104 S.Ct., at 2910, or that `some 
interference by officials,' Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 486, 73 S. Ct. 397, 
422, 97 L. Ed. 469 (1953), made compliance impracticable, would constitute cause 
under this standard.

 
 

"Similarly, if the 
procedural default is the result of ineffective assistance of counsel, the Sixth 
Amendment itself requires that responsibility for the default be imputed to the 
State, which may not `conduc[t] trials at which persons who face incarceration 
must defend themselves without adequate legal assistance.' * * * Ineffective 
assistance of counsel, then, is cause for a procedural default. However, we 
think that the exhaustion doctrine, which is `principally designed to protect 
the state courts' role in the enforcement of federal law and prevent disruption 
of state judicial proceedings,' * * * generally requires that a claim of 
ineffective assistance be presented to the state courts as an independent claim 
before it may be used to establish cause for a procedural default." 106 S. Ct.  at 
2645-2646.

 
 

[¶72.]  This Justice O'Connor message of failed 
justice is denial by cause and prejudice, was tempered with relief, if any, only 
to be available for attack on counsel which must first be presented, if it can, 
within state court process. It was apparent that the language of the 
five-member majority opinion placed Evitts v. Lucey, supra, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S. Ct. 830, in present 
question, but then the majority added:

 
 

"* * * We remain 
confident that, for the most part, 
`victims of a fundamental miscarriage of justice will meet the 
cause-and-prejudice standard.' * * * But we do not pretend that this will always 
be true. Accordingly, we think that in an extraordinary case, where a 
constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is 
actually innocent, a federal habeas court may grant the writ even in the absence 
of a showing of cause for the procedural default." (Emphasis added.) 106 S. Ct. 
at 2650.

 
 

The concurrence of 
Justices Stevens and Blackmun noted accurately that Daniels had been repudiated 
by Fay, while stating in addition that "the [Fay] opinion also, however, 
contained certain dicta that has been qualified by later opinions." 106 S. Ct.  at 
2651. The concurrence spoke for a rule of manifest injustice in consideration 
upon remand, but not in adoption of majority thesis of the opinion. Justice 
Brennan in dissent reiterated statements in earlier cases, 106 S. Ct.  at 2682, 
with consistent distaste by characterizing Sykes as "an illegitimate exercise of 
discretion." At the very least, one would also be called to agree with comment 
of the majority that "[t]he cause and 
prejudice test may lack a perfect historical pedigree." (Emphasis added.) 
106 S. Ct.  at 2650. A well-traveled barnyard term might more aptly 
apply.

 
 

[¶73.]  Murray v. Carrier, supra, was followed by 
Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 106 S. Ct. 2661, 91 L. Ed. 2d 434 (1986) in a 
five-to-four conclusion, with dissents by Justices Stevens and Brennan which 
again invoked failure in state court to raise appeal issue. In rejecting novelty 
of issue as a cause for escape from the procedural-default constitutional-right 
forfeiture, Justice O'Connor continued the mind-reader thesis that:

 
 

"* * * the question is 
not whether subsequent legal developments have made counsel's task easier, but 
whether at the time of the default the claim was `available' at all." 106 S. Ct. 
at 2667.

 
 

"* * * Under these 
circumstances, it simply is not open to argue that the legal basis of the claim 
petitioner now presses on federal habeas was unavailable to counsel at the time 
of the direct appeal." 106 S. Ct.  at 2668.

 
 

[¶74.]  As we contemplate the enormity of 
conclusion, it is realistic to otherwise concur that travel to Mars is "now" 
available but the intrinsic process as required to do it may not be developed 
for the next one thousand years.

 
 

[¶75.]  Having then failed to find cause in 
unexcluded potential anticipation, the decision moves:

 
 

"* * * Accordingly, 
`where a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one 
who is actually innocent, a federal habeas court may grant the writ even in the 
absence of a showing of cause for the procedural default.' Murray v. Carrier, 
106 S. Ct.  at 2650. "We acknowledge that the concept of `actual,' as distinct 
from `legal,' innocence does not translate easily into the context of an alleged 
error at the sentencing phase of a trial on a capital offense. Nonetheless, we 
think it clear on this record that application of the cause and prejudice test 
will not result in a `fundamental miscarriage of justice.' Engle, 456 U.S.  at 
135, 102 S. Ct.  at 1576." 106 S. Ct.  at 2668.

 
 

[¶76.]  One can consequently appreciate the 
conclusion that initiated dissent of Justice Stevens:

 
 

"The record in this case 
unquestionably demonstrates that petitioner's constitutional claim is 
meritorious, and that there is a significant risk that he will be put to death 
because his constitutional rights 
were violated." 106 S. Ct.  at 2669.

 
 

[¶77.]  In thoughtfulness, it then is added for 
our edification that if, as the majority here does, we are to adopt the federal 
rule,

 
 

"* * * If accuracy in the 
determination of guilt or innocence were the only value of our criminal justice 
system, then the Court's analysis might have a great deal of force. If accuracy 
is the only value, however, then many of our constitutional protections - such 
as the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and the Eighth 
Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment, the very claims asserted 
by petitioner - are not only irrelevant, but possibly counter-productive. Our 
Constitution, however, and our decision to adopt an `accusatorial,' rather than 
an `inquisitorial' system of justice, reflect a different choice. That choice is 
to afford the individual certain protections - the right against compelled 
self-incrimination and the right against cruel and unusual punishment among them 
- even if those rights do not necessarily implicate the accuracy of the 
truth-finding proceedings. Rather, those protections are an aspect of the 
fundamental fairness, liberty, and individual dignity that our society affords 
to all, even those charged with heinous crimes." 106 S. Ct.  at 
2671-2672.

 
 

[¶78.]  This controverted zigzag13 has not yet ended, since most 
recently procedural default was again revisited by the United States Supreme 
Court in state court denial of witness to defendant because of counsel failure 
to list in advance as pretrial requirement. On a five-to-three vote, this 
convolution of constitutional rights of the accused defendant was justified, 
which I find to be not singularly different from what was proscribed since 
Daniels, because of counsel's procedural default causing constitutional 
forfeiture of rights of the accused to defend with available witnesses. 
Taylor v. Illinois, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S. Ct. 646, 98 L. Ed. 2d 798 (1988). This is a 70-year remission of fundamental constitutional 
law.

 
 

[¶79.]  The vice and hypocrisy of the 
cause-and-prejudice ideology as legal-error absolution is intrinsic in the 
application of "cause" to unintended failure where as an axiomatic factor of the 
rule unintended failure is not cause, and lack of intention cannot produce 
cause. Whether an oxymoron, jejune abstraction, paradox, or just nonsense in 
justified legal stature, since unintended procedural default of counsel is 
antithetical to the consequent application of cause, the sole office of the 
rule, although not openly admitted in case application, is to deny 
constitutional-right consideration resulting from that unintended procedural 
default. Cause becomes, by definition, only an oxymoronic-excuse word when applied 
to unintended default as justification for denied relief. It states cause and 
denominates no possible cause.

 
 

[¶80.]  The unintended mistake may have been 
egregious or completely understandable, and the prejudice modest or determining, 
but no matter - cause is lacking, and by sleight-of-hand definition, appellate 
inquiry is avoided. Responsive to the dilemma created, the courts then have to 
extract the admitted error denied in constitutional relief by cause-and-transfer 
review to the antithetical subject of ineffectiveness of counsel. The paradox is 
ineffectiveness when derived from unintended default is not cause for cause in 
cause-and-prejudice, but then is reviewed by the stringent criteria of 
ineffective counsel as dimensional failure when arising only from unintended 
misadventure in legal service performance.

 
 

APPLICATION OF FEDERAL 
CAUSE-AND-PREJUDICE FORFEITURE RULE TO WYOMING CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES

 
 

[¶81.]  The significance of this analysis of the 
implied forfeiture cases in the United States Supreme Court decisions is not 
derived from the demonstrable inconsistency which is self-evident, nor from lack 
of logical foundation in insistent reasoning, which is apparent, but rather to 
reject this coarsegrained, pragmatic ideology substitute for justice where the 
broad philosophy of Burger, Rehnquist and O'Connor is factually defined in 
denied federal relief. Their ideological drive to confine state constitutional 
enforcement within state courts is ill-served for this state court as a 
convoluted approach which is not consistently identical or constitutionally 
comparable with the asserted federal interest of abstention and comity. What the 
federal courts may do to avoid consideration of state-court originated 
constitutional issues has little legal relationship to the state court 
application of state and federal guaranteed rights in initial trial and appeal 
search for due process, equal protection, and constitutional justice. 
"Federalism is a prime [state] reason for maintaining an effective 
post-conviction relief system." Comment, Post Conviction Remedies Under 
Missouri Rule 
27.26: Problems and Solutions, 47 Mo.L.Rev. 787, 806 (1982).

 
 

"* * * Because state 
supreme courts are ultimately responsible for state law, they owe the state and 
the nation a duty to provide careful and thoughtful state constitutional 
jurisprudence. State courts can do that by independently analyzing the 
protections their state constitutions provide. State constitutions and bills of 
rights ought to be more than mere compilations of `glittering generalities.'" 
Comment, Interpreting the State Constitution: A Survey and Assessment of Current 
Methodology, 35 U.Kan.L.Rev. 593, 623 (1987).

 
 

[¶82.]  One only need note the generation of 
Evitts v. Lucey, supra, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S. Ct. 830, which in the context of a 
timely appeal, cf. Daniels cases, supra, cannot be confined by the 
cause-and-prejudice rule where counsel's mistake, inattention, or negligence 
would otherwise forfeit singular constitutional rights. It is to be academically 
noted that neither majority nor dissent in Evitts, Sykes, or its progeny as the 
cases which considered the implied-forfeiture rule and illusory escape of cause 
and prejudice. See Note, Effective Assistance of Counsel on Appeal: Due Process 
Prevails in Evitts v. Lucey, 35 De Paul L.Rev. 185 (1985). Consequently, Evitts 
becomes a first-generation exception to that course of decisions. Appellate 
court ad hoc determination of possible or probable innocence becomes the second, 
as accomplished by majority vote. Not even in determination as to whether 
attorneys need to be mind readers has the illogic of this precedent been 
consistently applied. In Engle, where the attorney was expected to contemplate 
and anticipate the future change from a hundred-year standard, and then in Jones 
v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 103 S. Ct. 3308, 77 L. Ed. 2d 987 (1983), the majority directly confined issue appeal obligation, even if 
nonfrivolous. So that the message is not lost in phraseology, these cases lack 
any operational legal consistency in requiring absolute predestination - in 
issue selection in one case, and in confining appeal responsibility to only what 
is now probable in another. This accomplishes the converse paradox.

 
 

[¶83.]  It is in the absolute nature of the 
cause-and-prejudice rule to determine that reasoned judgment is not acceptable. 
Meanwhile, the hungry wolves of implied forfeiture anticipatorily wait beyond 
the courthouse door to devour constitutional guarantees.14

 
 

[¶84.]  As Justice Brennan, in dissent, 
recognizes:

 
 

"The Court subtly but 
unmistakably adopts a different conception of the defense lawyer's role - he 
need do nothing beyond what the State, not his client, considers most important. 
In many ways, having a lawyer becomes one of the many indignities visited upon 
someone who has the ill fortune to run afoul of the criminal justice 
system.

 
 

"I cannot accept the 
notion that lawyers are one of the punishments a person receives merely for 
being accused of a crime." Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S.  at 764, 103 S. Ct.  at 3319.

 
 

[¶85.]  Academic distaste for the disingenuous 
status of Jones in the actualities of client and attorney relationship, and 
prior precedential comments invoking master-agent and master-for-client need 
only be related here to the unworkability of cause and prejudice. In the litany 
of denied justice, the admonition of Glasser v. United States, supra, 315 U.S.  at 70, 62 S. Ct.  at 465, should not be ignored:

 
 

"To preserve the 
protection of the Bill of Rights for hard-pressed defendants, we indulge every 
reasonable presumption against the waiver of fundamental rights."

 
 

[¶86.]  I am not persuaded or permitted morally 
to adopt the garish application of Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S. Ct. 2497, for application by the Wyoming Supreme Court, or even more stringent 
posture now developed by this court in denying constitutional-interest rights to 
persons charged with criminal offenses. The someday possibility of strategic 
by-pass is no proper basis for ignoring today constitutionally involved 
counseling ineffectiveness. The deterrence to sandbagging as oft discussed and 
never demonstrated, as a facade or mirage, is singularly unimportant compared to 
protection of the individual's constitutional rights. It is not to be perceived 
that by a number of insistently emplaced requirements this court and the 
justice-delivery system of the state can decrease procedural defaults. Some 
affirmative efforts, noted in the literature, could impose, in trial procedures, 
greater counsel selectivity, more rigorous education of lawyers on trial 
requirements, and judicial recognization of the character of the problem, and, 
in last resort, suspension and disbarment for inveterate defaulters. Neither 
this court in present decision nor federal solutions realistically encompass a 
thesis of logic and justification except by a course of conduct and indicated 
attitude to ignore, absolve, and reject what really is occurring. Inevitably, it 
will be in a system which acknowledges opportunity for correction, since 
perfection of judge, jury, or counsel does not exist and should not be covered 
up in constitutionally denied rights by procedural default forfeitures.15

 
 

FEDERALISM IN CRIMINAL 
LAW

 
 

[¶87.]  Beyond reasoned argument, it is apparent 
that failure of state judicial and legislative commitment to the preservation of 
constitutional rights led to initial intervention of federal courts through 
habeas corpus in the criminal-trial process. The developments of the 
Frankfurter/Brennan/Warren court in relationship to denied justice in state 
courts were hardly accidental:

 
 

"* * * State courts 
having failed to reach the merits for their own purposes, federal courts may 
fill the void." Larry W. Yackle, Postconviction Remedies, supra at 
17.

 
 

[¶88.]  Federalism is a prime reason for 
maintaining an effective post-conviction-relief system. Post Conviction Remedies 
Under Missouri Rule 27.26, supra at 807. In interest of retention of state 
criminal litigation in state courts, reason denies diseffectuation of state 
post-conviction-relief processes. See Raper, Post Conviction Remedies, supra, 19 
Wyo.L.J. 213.

 
 

"* * * [P]ostconviction 
review is necessary to protect constitutional rights to due process. The 
Missouri and 
United States Constitutions say habeas corpus must not be suspended, and the 
United States Supreme Court has, in effect, said that if state courts do not 
provide adequate postconviction procedures, the federal courts will. In the 
interests of justice, federalism, and finality, state courts need to provide 
effective postconviction review. It must be available to all if it is to be 
effective." Post Conviction Remedies Under Missouri Rule 27.26, supra, 47 
Mo.L.Rev. at 807.

 
 

[¶89.]  Consequently, we would have the essence 
of the rules to be presented, from which I dissent, to be restated in actual 
functioning processes as procedural default forfeiture of rights not only of the 
United States Constitution, but more appropriately the Wyoming Constitution, 
arising from neglect or default of adequate representation. In reference to 
Cutbirth, this court applies the waiver rule invoking neglect or defective 
decision of counsel, to foreclose claims made in Cutbirth's petition for 
post-conviction relief by reiteration that the courts in this state are not 
required to review issues that were raised or could have been raised on appeal 
as later asserted in a petition for post-conviction relief, although the failure 
resulted from neglect or defective decision of counsel.

 
 

[¶90.]  Although applicable to a status derived 
in part from Fay, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S. Ct. 822, and Townsend, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S. Ct. 745, since decimated if not finally and totally interred in Sykes, I would 
concur with a 1965 academic contemplation in Note, State Post-Conviction 
Remedies and Federal Habeas Corpus, 40 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 154, 196 (1965):

 
 

"* * * In view of the 
stakes involved - the continued adjudication of crime in the state courts - and 
in view of the readiness evidenced by the federal courts to give weight to the 
needs of comity, it would seem worthwhile for states to hear and adjudicate all 
claims cognizable on federal habeas corpus in their own courts,"

 
 

and also with the 
rationale of the dissent in Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, 433 U.S.  at 
113-114, 97 S. Ct.  at 2520-21, Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, J., 
dissenting:

 
 

"* * * Especially with 
fundamental constitutional rights at stake, no fictional relationship of 
principal-agent or the like can justify holding the criminal defendant 
accountable for the naked errors of his attorney. This is especially true when 
so many indigent defendants are without any realistic choice in selecting who 
ultimately represents them at trial. Indeed, if responsibility for error must be 
apportioned between the parties, it is the State, through its attorney's 
admissions and certification policies, that is more fairly held to blame for the 
fact that practicing lawyers too often are ill-prepared or ill-equipped to act 
carefully and knowledgeably when faced with decisions governed by state 
procedural requirements."

 
 

[¶91.]  Justice William J. Brennan, not only the 
most admired but also the most influential jurist of this last half century, and 
recognized as the author of state constitutional rights imprimatur on justice 
delivery, spoke directly to federalism in Federal Habeas Corpus and State 
Prisoners: An Exercise in Federalism, 7 Utah L.Rev. 423 (1961), and in his 
address to the Conference of Chief Justices, Some Aspects of Federalism, 39 N 
YU.L.Rev. 945, 957-958 (1964):

 
 

"Rather than as 
unwarranted federal encroachment upon state domains, the federal habeas corpus 
jurisdiction should be taken by the States as an opportunity to fashion state 
remedies as good or better for the disposition of the federal claims of state 
prisoners."16

 
 

[¶92.]  At least in part now, and more 
particularly as the present disablement of constitutional rights in federal 
forum inevitably is soon to pass, we of this court, in moving in the direction 
of the limitation of "fair inquiry" provided by state statute, must surely 
expect a magnification of the Kevin Osborn result, Osborn v. State, Wyo., 672 P.2d 777 (1983), cert. denied 465 U.S. 1051, 104 S. Ct. 1331, 79 L. Ed. 2d 726 
(1984); Osborn v. Schillinger, D.Wyo., 639 F. Supp. 610 (1986), where after a 
six-day hearing in federal court it was there observed:

 
 

"In passing, this Court 
recognizes that Wyoming Supreme Court never has had before it a full record. It 
essentially dealt with a procedural situation, without a factual foundation such 
as developed by this Court in its six (6) day hearing, which was really the only 
full hearing Osborn has ever had. Because of the lack of an extensive 
evidentiary proceeding, the facts herein found were for the most part not known 
to either the state trial court or supreme court." 639 F. Supp.  at 614.17

 
 

TO WHAT DEGREE OF 
PERFORMED LAWYERING SKILLS ARE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO BE DIRECTED?

 
 

[¶93.]  It is how the justice-delivery system 
deficiently defines its own structure that inevitably it not only will be in 
denied justice, but that it will be accurately perceived by others as a 
recognized failure. Rejection by popular consensus will follow if broad 
characterizations of failure are stated and excused, even though reasoned and 
rational judicial analysis might achieve the same result in affording 
substantive justice and providing societal satisfaction. The Constitution does 
not guarantee the assistance of the most brilliant counsel, but at least reason 
and care. What is the public message of system validity presented in forfeiture 
justification? We are called to wade through the misery of what justice as an 
institution and industry does and says in constitutional-right forfeiture 
dissertation:

 
 

"* * * The incompetency 
or negligence of an attorney employed by the defendant does not ordinarily 
constitute grounds for a new trial and a fortiori will not be grounds for the 
application of the Fourteenth Amendment. * * *

 
 

"The concept of this rule 
is that the lack of skill and incompetency of the attorney is imputed to the 
defendant who employed him * * *." Tompsett v. State of Ohio, 146 F.2d  at 
98.

 
 

"The incompetence, 
negligence, or unfaithfulness of defendant's counsel who was selected by him in 
the trial of a criminal case does not as a general rule constitute ground for a 
new trial, nor call for application of constitutional guarantees of defendant's 
full right to the benefit of counsel, nor for application of the Fourteenth 
Amendment to the Federal Constitution." Jones v. Balkcom, 210 Ga. 262, 79 S.E.2d 1, 3-4 
(1953).

 
 

"* * * It would be 
trifling with the court to allow the client, after keeping silent in the 
presence of the court while his attorney entered a plea of guilty in his behalf 
and the court acting thereon imposed the sentence, to deny thereafter the 
authority of his attorney to enter the plea or to deny his approval of such 
action by his attorney." Archer v. Clark, 202 Ga. 229, 42 S.E.2d 924, 925 
(1947).

 
 

It is in this last case, 
even though the individual alleged in denied post-conviction proceeding that he 
was not guilty, that he had a defense, and that he objected to the entry of the 
plea and his attorney would not allow him to make any explanation to the 
court.

 
 

"Effective representation 
by counsel, in order to satisfy the accused's constitutional right to a fair 
trial, is a rule of law that has been strictly construed. It must mean 
representation so lacking in competence that it becomes the duty of the court to observe such a 
condition and correct it. Allegations of serious mistakes on the part of an 
attorney, standing alone, even where harm results, are not a ground for habeas 
corpus. In all the cases decided on this subject, the circumstances surrounding 
the trial must be such as to shock the conscience of the court and make the 
proceeding a farce and a mockery of justice." (Emphasis added.) Rice v. 
Davis, Ky., 366 S.W.2d 153, 156-157 
(1963).

 
 

[¶94.]  Entry of a technical plea or a technical 
violation with a 24-hour sentence actually served by sitting in the courtroom 
for the balance of the day, unrecognized by counsel as a pleaded-out felony 
conviction, does not constitute ineffectiveness of counsel. United 
States v. Cariola, 323 F.2d 180 (3rd Cir. 
1963). In Cariola, full evidence was not available for the coram nobis 
review:

 
 

"`This court has made 
diligent effort to obtain a transcript of the proceedings to ascertain what 
colloquy transpired between court and counsel. Both trial judge and court 
reporter are deceased, and the latter's notes are not in existence. It also 
appears that the Government's records of this case cannot be located.'" 
United States v. Cariola, 323 F.2d  at 183, n. 1, quoting from United States v. Cariola, 211 F. Supp. 423, 424-425 (D.N.J. 1962).

 
 

[¶95.]  In characteristic understatement, which 
is often to be perceived in examination of appellate opinions as illustrative of 
the lack of trial experience by the jurist, the court reflected:

 
 

"Although [counsel] met 
petitioner for the first time in the courtroom the morning of the trial and 
talked to petitioner for only about ten minutes, during this time petitioner 
told him everything he knew about the case. "There is no suggestion that [the 
attorney] was incompetent or unfaithful to petitioner's interest. The most that 
can be said is that he was young, his experience in criminal matters was 
limited, and his trial preparation was probably less extensive than it should 
have been." United 
States v. Cariola, 323 F.2d  at 185.18

 
 

[¶96.]  Petitioner reveals nothing more than 
claimed errors of trial counsel of the extent and kind common to all human 
effort, including denied inquiry of failure to appeal, and ignored contentions 
of irregularities in brief that "collusion occurred between his counsel and 
government counsel, and that the prosecution knowingly employed perjured 
testimony." Rivera v. United 
States, 318 F.2d 606, 608 (9th Cir. 
1963).

 
 

"We think the term 
`effective assistance' - the courts' construction of the constitutional 
requirement for the assistance of counsel - does not relate to the quality of 
the service rendered by a trial lawyer or to the decisions he makes in the 
normal course of a criminal case; except that, if his conduct is so incompetent 
as to deprive his client of a trial in any real sense - render the trial a 
mockery and a farce is one descriptive expression, - the accused must have 
another trial, or rather, more accurately, is still entitled to a trial." 
Mitchell v. United 
States, 259 F.2d 787, 793 (D.C. Cir.), cert. 
denied 358 U.S. 850, 79 S. Ct. 81, 3 L. Ed. 2d 86 (1958).

 
 

As critiqued in 
dissent:

 
 

"Perhaps the clearest way 
of expressing the reason for my dissent is to say that the constitutional right 
to the effective assistance of counsel does not in my view prescribe merely a 
procedural requirement but, contrary to the majority opinion, prescribes also a 
standard of skill." 259 F.2d  at 794, Fahy, Circuit Judge, 
dissenting.

 
 

[¶97.]  What, as a standard, do these references 
and quotations make for civic-class evaluation, or in citizens' contemplation of 
the honesty, reliability, and effectiveness of the legal profession and the 
justice-delivery system? I see in the majority opinion an abject adaptation of 
the waiver idiom that the conduct of the worst becomes not only the standard of 
perception but the confines of responsibility.

 
 

INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF 
COUNSEL AS AN APPEAL ISSUE

 
 

[¶98.]  Having recognized that the waiver 
principle is a psychological mirage and an operational absurdity, I am then 
turned to the address of this court to ineffective assistance of counsel. One 
vice of the argument of the court afforded by contending for this phenomenon or 
standard is in failure to recognize that the stringent application of imputed 
waiver, at least for most of this century, is novel in application. It should be 
recognized that the extent or degree of neglect or defective decision of the 
attorney, which is the essential question addressed, requires analysis in order 
to determine whether a reversal is required, which is the office of Strickland 
v. Washington 
as a confining approach. The difficulty with the theoretical concept of the 
majority is, first, in the attribution of waiver, and then in the question of 
significance as defined in more determinative facts being relegated to a 
pragmatically explained justification rather than to a singular harm result in 
system failure. Cf.Commonwealth v. Bolden, Pa., 534 A.2d 456 (1987). 
At issue should only be, how bad was the counseling assistance, and how bad was 
the result on the fair-trial liberty interests of the accused? The jurist should 
always be willing to ask whether he would be satisfied and comfortable with what 
has occurred if he or a close acquaintance had been the accused.

 
 

[¶99.]  Practically, we should start with the 
recognition that, if the word "waiver" is used, a mistake occurred, as of the 
essence of the word that a valued right was lost. The consideration to be 
afforded in post conviction or upon appeal is whether that valued right defined 
a constitutional interest and the conduct of the attorney was of a character so 
that the facade of implied responsibility of the client should not be 
reassessed. In categorical difference, my disagreement with the majority is 
illustrated by their statement that "the simple failure to raise certain issues 
on appeal, even if they were meritorious, does not require a conclusion of 
ineffective assistance of counsel."19 One would ask, what does the 
failure to raise meritorious issues really mean except neglect, failure, and 
deficiency? This is ineffectiveness in fact, whether or not in fiction or 
extemporized standard. The horrifying facade of the entire approach is to 
foreclose the rights of the client and then deny the responsibility of the 
attorney. Laing v. State, supra,746 P.2d 1247. Syllogisms aside, neglect or 
deficient decision of the attorney is innately prejudicial, and the only 
question for address is to what extent and with what reasoned result. In order 
to assay that conduct, specific evaluation of the claimed neglect or deficient 
decision of the attorney must be reviewed in trial context. Obviously, the arena 
for review is within different parameters as included at trial with 
moment-to-moment responsibilities as to be differentiated from the failure of 
appellate counsel to acknowledge adverse decisions or recognize trial problems 
in record examination and appellate-brief composition.

 
 

[¶100.]            
The problem is not resolved by further application of the "concrete 
standard" which this court now pursues as a substitute for evaluation of the 
counseled mistake and a consideration of its effect on the liberty interests of 
the individual. Since explicit by the use of the word "waiver," error is 
irretrievably adduced, and the question is the significance of the error and the 
relationship to a proper basis for reversal. I do not have a problem with a 
requirement that the petitioner must show an adverse effect upon a substantial 
right as derived from the "counseled error," but I would submit that this has 
nothing rational to do with plain error or a clear and unequivocal rule of 
law.

 
 

[¶101.]            
The paradigm or, more appropriately, paradox or oxymoron applied by the 
majority as an ongoing standard of this case, is that having denied relief to 
the defendant based on procedural default in trial or appeal, test of relief for 
ineffective counsel is so stringent that the attribution of waiver to the client 
from the attorney's imperfect performance becomes an absolute bar to 
constitutional justice for the charged individual. If pragmatism in result is 
justified, pragmatism in calling the procedural process what it is will be more 
appropriate in reason and logic. Knowing the fiction of client waiver, this 
court poses an irrational burden on the liberty interest of the client to 
demonstrate effectiveness where stupidity, slovenliness or just lack of reasoned 
preparation will not necessarily suffice. While we should be addressing our 
inquiry to whether or not the accused defendant was denied constitutional 
rights, we detour our review to insurmountable burdens by arbitrary and 
parasitically applied "standards." Somehow or another, it is observable that the 
direction is to avoid examining the issues by the substitution of labels which 
deny relief without academic application as affixing a result without 
reason.

 
 

[¶102.]            
I would find cause to differ from the majority of this court in rationale 
and rationalization, as well as case classification of discovery of "only a few 
cases in which reversible error for ineffective assistance of appellate counsel 
was premised upon the failure to raise certain issues on appeal." Actually, 
Evitts v. Lucey, supra, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S. Ct. 830, and the 
multitude of improper, untimely, or omitted appeals serve as a first example. To 
expand the territory of constitutional waiver as encompassing inept appellate 
counsel now faced here as procedural default, attention is directed to the text 
and cases in Annot., 15 A.L.R.4th 582, Adequacy of Defense Counsel's 
Representation of Criminal Client Re Appellate and Postconviction Remedies 
(totaling 194 pages of text, including supplement).

 
 

[¶103.]            
As examples of reversed decisions normally occurring in post-conviction 
relief for habeas corpus, I include the many cases cited above, and as examples 
Jenkins v. Coombe, 821 F.2d 158 (2d Cir. 1987), cert. denied 108 S. Ct. 704, 98 L. Ed. 2d 655 (1988); Bell v. Lockhart, 795 F.2d 655 (8th Cir. 1986); Gray v. 
Greer, 778 F.2d 350 (7th Cir. 1985) (remanded for further consideration of 
ineffectiveness of counsel); Lewis v. State, 279 Ark. 143, 649 S.W.2d 188 
(1983); Paulsen v. Manson, 193 Conn. 333, 476 A.2d 1057 (1984); Rivera v. State, 
Ind. App., 477 N.E.2d 110 (1985) (remanded for rebriefing after the court 
recognized "blatant nonrepresentation" in text of first brief); Lamphere v. 
State, Iowa, 348 N.W.2d 212 (1984); Curtis v. State, 284 Md. 132, 395 A.2d 464 
(1978); Stewart v. Warden, 92 Nev. 588, 555 P.2d 218 (1976); People v. Casiano, 
67 N.Y.2d 906, 501 N.Y.S.2d 808, 492 N.E.2d 1224 (1986) (new counsel appointed 
and reconsideration of appeal required).

 
 

[¶104.]            
The subject was succinctly defined in Stewart v. Warden, supra, by a per 
curiam Nevada Supreme Court opinion:

 
 

"It is uncontroverted 
that while the appeal was in progress appellant requested his then attorney to 
raise certain claims of error, and the attorney neither presented those claims 
of error to the supreme court nor offered any reason or explanation for his 
failure to do so. * * *

 
 

* * * * * *

 
 

"In the factual context 
of this post-conviction proceeding, we hold the unexplained omissions of 
appellant's former attorney may not be relied upon by a district court to 
penalize appellant for the failure of his `. . . appointed counsel [to] function 
in the active role of an advocate, . . .'" 555 P.2d  at 219.

 
 

[¶105.]            
The Iowa court in Sims v. State, 
Iowa, 295 N.W.2d 420, 424 (1980), simplistically stated:

 
 

"Of course the right to 
effective assistance of counsel also applies to assistance of counsel on appeal. 
Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744, 
87 S. Ct. 1396, 1400, 18 L. Ed. 2d 493, 498 (1967) * * *. The same standards 
applied to trial counsel competency should apply in measuring the competency of 
appellate counsel."

 
 

"When the postconviction 
applicant asserts constitutional violations, we make an independent evaluation 
of the totality of the circumstances. Hinkle v. State, 290 N.W.2d 28, 30 
(Iowa 1980). 
This is the equivalent of a de novo review. Id.; * * *." Id. at 422.

 
 

[¶106.]            
The Florida cases of Barclay v. 
Wainwright, Fla., 444 So. 2d 956 (1984), and 
Dougan v. Wainwright, Fla., 448 So. 2d 1005 (1984), more 
comprehensively display my conclusion of reversals for ineffectiveness of 
appellate counsel. See Barclay v. State, Fla., 343 So. 2d 1266 (1977), cert. 
denied 439 U.S. 892, 99 S. Ct. 249, 58 L. Ed. 2d 237 (1978), remanded for 
resentencing 362 So. 2d 657 (1978), aff'd after resentencing 411 So. 2d 1310 
(1981), aff'd 463 U.S. 939, 103 S. Ct. 3418, 37 L. Ed. 2d 1134 (1983), rev'd upon 
petition for habeas corpus in order to allow Barclay a new appeal from stay of 
execution, 444 So. 2d 956 (1984):

 
 

"We also find that 
Jackson did not 
provide Barclay with effective assistance of counsel." 444 So. 2d  at 
959.

 
 

The Dougan sequence arose 
in conjunction with the Barclay case, with initial affirmation of Dougan's 
conviction in Barclay, and following remand again affirmed and sentenced to 
death in Dougan v. State, Fla., 398 So. 2d 439, cert. denied 454 U.S. 882, 102 S. Ct. 367, 70 L. Ed. 2d 193 (1981). In Dougan v. Wainwright, supra, 448 So. 2d 1005, the Supreme Court held that appellate counsel failed to provide effective 
assistance both by conflict of interest and failure to raise meritorious legal 
claims in behalf of Dougan, and the petition for habeas corpus was granted in 
order to afford a new appeal. The case came back in Dougan v. State, Fla., 470 So. 2d 697 (1985), cert. denied 475 U.S. 1098, 106 S. Ct. 1499, 89 L. Ed. 2d 900 
(1986), and was again reversed for resentencing by virtue of error in the 
sentencing process which did not invoke incompetency or ineffectiveness of 
appellate or trial counsel. 

 
 

[¶107.]            
The clear lesson to be learned from the Barclay-Dougan cases is the 
recognition of how much less time would have been required, and how much money 
would have been saved, if the ineffectiveness-of-counsel issue had more 
immediately received attention.

 
 

[¶108.]            
In reversing and remanding for a new trial, the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania in Commonwealth v. Pfaff, 477 Pa. 461, 384 A.2d 1179, 1182 (1978) 
teaches:

 
 

"One convicted of crime 
also has a right to appeal, Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S. Ct. 814, 9 L. Ed. 2d 811 (1963); 
Commonwealth v. Herge, 436 Pa. 542, 260 A.2d 787 (1970), and has the 
right to effective representation of counsel when taking that appeal. We are 
unwilling to conclude that appellate counsel effectively represents one 
convicted of a crime when appellate counsel, either through inadvertence or 
otherwise, fails to raise arguably meritorious issues on that appeal. One 
purpose of the appellate process is to guarantee as much as possible that the 
defendant's right to a fair and impartial trial is scrupulously honored. When 
appellate counsel fails to bring to the attention of the appellate courts facts 
which arguably indicate that trial counsel allowed the accused to be subjected 
to prejudicial prosecutorial conduct during trial, we are forced to conclude 
that appellate counsel's representation of the accused was also 
ineffective."

 
 

See also Commonwealth v. 
Broomell, 254 Pa. Super. 574, 386 A.2d 99, 101 (1978), where 
the case was remanded for rehearing since

 
 

"* * * [t]here must be an 
opportunity to have all of the issues regarding the effectiveness of counsel 
considered in one hearing, with right in either party to appeal from the 
determinations made by the court below following the evidentiary 
hearing."

 
 

"* * * When deciding a 
claim of ineffective appellate counsel, the hearing court must determine if the 
course chosen by counsel had some reasonable basis designed to effectuate his 
client's interests. * * * Because this decision requires an examination of 
counsel's stewardship of the appeal in light of the available alternatives, it 
often will be necessary to call counsel whose assistance is challenged as 
ineffective so he may explain the decisions he made in the course of the appeal. 
Furthermore, both the petitioner and the Commonwealth may wish to call 
additional witnesses and present other evidence relevant to the petitioner's 
claim." Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 472 Pa. 129, 371 A.2d 468, 474 (1977).

 
 

[¶109.]            
The context of discussion in the majority opinion as may be accorded some 
similarity to recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court, confuses the 
essential function of advocate counsel. The attorney representing the defendant, 
and particularly so on appeal, remains an advocate and is not just an amicus 
curiae. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S. Ct. 1396, 18 L. Ed. 2d 493, reh. denied 388 U.S. 924, 87 S. Ct. 2094, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1377 (1967); Entsminger 
v. Iowa, 386 U.S. 748, 87 S. Ct. 1402, 18 L. Ed. 2d 501 (1967). It is equally to be recognized that 
appellate counsel is not free to assume the position of amicus curiae, but also 
is not a jurist.

 
 

[¶110.]            
The predominant posture of the thoughtful scholars and opinion writers 
defines the responsibility of appellate counsel to present for consideration on 
review each legitimate issue that he may find or that may separately be found or 
suggested by defendant clients. The 
selectivity process in the determination of legal-issue merit should be vested 
in the jurist, and not in the mind of the advocate counsel to either determine 
the rights of his client, or to anticipate the contemplative conclusions of the 
appellate segment of the judicial division of the justice-delivery system. 
Cf. Dennis v. United States, 
384 U.S. 855, 875, 86 S. Ct. 1840, 16 L. Ed. 2d 1973 (1966):20 

 
 

"* * * In our adversary 
system, it is enough for judges to judge. The determination of what may be 
useful to the defense can properly and effectively be made only by an advocate. 
The trial judge's function in this respect is limited to deciding whether a case 
has been made for production, and to supervise the process * * *."

 
 

[¶111.]            
In People v. Lang, 11 Cal. 3d 134, 113 Cal. Rptr. 9, 520 P.2d 393, 396 
(1974), we are thoughtfully reminded that

 
 

"* * * [T]he obligations 
of appellate counsel [include] the duty to prepare a legal brief containing 
citations to the transcript and appropriate authority, and setting forth all 
arguable issues, and the further duty not to argue the case against his 
client."

 
 

This principle was 
affirmed and restated in People v. Barton, 21 Cal. 3d 513, 146 Cal. Rptr. 727, 579 P.2d 1043, 1046-1047 (1978).

 
 

[¶112.]            
In reversal and remand to reconsider the appeal, the California Supreme 
Court analyzed that:

 
 

"* * * In the instant 
case, appellate counsel breached both duties." 113 Cal. Rptr. 9, 520 P.2d  at 
396.

 
 

[¶113.]            
In the seminal case, where the California Supreme Court vacated the 
decision of the intermediate appellate court, reinstated the appeal, and 
appointed other counsel for the defendant, In re Smith, 3 Cal. 3d 192, 90 Cal. Rptr. 1, 474 P.2d 969, 971-972 (1970), a similar definition of duties 
included:

 
 

"* * * `Counsel must 
prepare a brief to assist the court in understanding the facts and the legal 
issues in the case. The brief must set forth a statement of the facts with 
citations to the transcript, discuss the legal issues with citations of 
appropriate authority, and argue all issues that are arguable. Moreover, counsel 
serves both the court and his client by advocating changes in the law if 
argument can be made supporting change. * * *.'" Quoting from People v. Feggans, 
67 Cal. 2d 444, 62 Cal. Rptr. 419, 432 P.2d 21 (1967).

 
 

In the devastating 
analysis, the court found:

 
 

"Judged by the foregoing 
criteria, representation by the appointed counsel for petitioner before the 
Court of Appeal was demonstrably inadequate. Indeed, petitioner would have fared 
better had his attorney withdrawn in favor of a pro se brief from petitioner, 
despite petitioner's acknowledged legal ineptitude. In a case bristling with 
arguable claims of error, petitioner's counsel filed an opening brief consisting 
of a 20-page recitation of the facts and a one-page argument." Id. 90 Cal. Rptr. 1, 474 P.2d  at 972.

 
 

[¶114.]            
Furthermore, I would completely agree with that court in 
conclusion:

 
 

"Of course, an appellate 
counsel is not to be held responsible for an actual frivolous appeal by his 
client, and we do not hold that Anders and Feggans require the advocate to 
contrive arguable issues. But in the instant action, each of the counts on which 
petitioner was convicted was potentially vulnerable to legitimate and 
provocative appellate contentions that should have been manifest to an alert and 
responsive attorney." Id. 90 Cal. Rptr. 1, 474 P.2d  at 
972.

 
 

See also Bryant v. State, 
Hawaii App., 720 P.2d 1015 (1986).

 
 

[¶115.]            
Finally, on the subject of the "new phenomenon," I would find as the most 
pertinent countervailing example Osborn v. State, supra, 672 P.2d 777, where 
that decision and this court, after an ineffective appeal, were effectively 
reversed by the United States District Court in Osborn v. Schillinger, supra, 
639 F. Supp. 610, where the defendant was 
first provided an actual hearing. Obviously, with appeal still pending from 
that latter decision in the United States Court of Appeals, the final Osborn 
story of life, death, or trial on guilt is not written, but as now introduced 
the status is no differently presented than was the resolution in Matire v. 
Wainwright, 811 F.2d 1430 (11th Cir. 1987).

 
 

[¶116.]            
Consequently, in this consideration of ineffectiveness of counsel for 
trial and appeal, I would apply as reasonably to be utilized as 
criteria:

 
 

(1) If the issue was 
reasonably presented and dispositively considered in prior appeal, adjudicated 
finality would summarily be applied in denied relief.

 
 

(2) If not presented, the 
issue either had merit or did not.

 
 

(3) If the issue had no 
merit substantively, it is subject in post-conviction consideration to 
appropriate resolution with adjudicative finality.

 
 

(4) If the issue did have 
prior merit in constitutional deprivation, it ill suits justice to say that it 
was waived by the attorney, impressed upon the client, and now reclassified to 
belie effective assistance of counsel. Consequently, if the issue had merit, it 
cannot be constitutionally waived by the uncommunicated action of counsel and 
should be considered dispositively as whether meeting rather clearly 
determinable criteria as a basis for the nonrational delivery of justice by 
denial, if appropriate, or by granted relief where justified.

 
 

(5) To any recognized 
ineffectiveness of counsel, inquiry of prejudice to the defendant is applied, 
measured in sufficiency of the error if it had not occurred as would provide a 
reasonable doubt of guilt. Cf. United States v. Agurs, supra, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S. Ct. 2392; Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. 688, 104 S. Ct. 2052; Commonwealth v. Bolden, supra, 534 A.2d 456.

 
 

"The benchmark for 
judging a claim of ineffectiveness is whether counsel's conduct so undermined 
the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be 
relied on as having produced a just result." People v. Dillon, Colo. App., 739 P.2d 919, 921 
(1987).

 
 

[¶117.]            
Neither the legislature nor this court can properly amend or deny the 
constitution. Compare Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association v. State Board of 
Equalization, Wyo., 749 P.2d 221 (1987). We may have become 
a nation of shortcuts and sloppy performance, but neither one of those 
problemsome features of a potentially declining society should be invoked as 
procedural denial of substantive justice. What this court really does is to 
leave for post-conviction relief only arguments sounding in lawyer-bashing, at 
least in trial and appeal cases, and perhaps nothing in plea cases, at least if 
the conclusions of Whitney v. State, Wyo., 745 P.2d 902 (1987) are to be applied 
hereafter, where only sentences may be at issue.

 
 

[¶118.]            
My objection and consequent dissent rest upon denial of 
constitutional-issue consideration by extrapolation of a new and completely 
confined statute as defined by judicial fiat. What this court announces is that 
ineffective assistance of counsel can be determined without review of the 
specific lawyer's error. This is to heap absurdity on hyperbole. First the court 
says that waiver exists if the attorney 
did not present the issue in trial or on appeal, and now excuses failure to 
raise on appeal by evaluated process without consideration of what wrong was 
done, if any, to the client's constitutional interests. This is to build to 
justiciable status accident, ignorance, stupidity, or negligence, to be 
responsively excused. The perspicacity of the author in Jettisoning Fay v. Noia, 
supra, 62 Minn.L.Rev. at 438-439, is clearly demonstrated as earlier forewarned 
in Osborn v. Schillinger, supra:

 
 

"Whatever standard is 
ultimately adopted with respect to contested cases, close scrutiny of the state 
court trial record will be virtually mandatory, and testimony at federal habeas 
evidentiary hearings is a likely prospect. Thus, claims of ineffective 
assistance may well result in a substantial increase of time-consuming tasks for 
the lower federal courts and in considerable embarrassment for the 
bar.

 
 

"Additional problems 
arise if, in implementing the cause and prejudice requirements, the Court 
adopts, as Sykes seems to suggest, a miscarriage-of-justice or 
totality-of-the-circumstances test. Since such a standard appears to involve 
consideration of the probable guilt or innocence of the prisoner, the federal 
courts will be obliged to make ad hoc, case-by-case determinations with respect 
to this issue. Decisions of this kind are extremely subjective, and coherent 
guidelines for making them are hard to formulate. * * * [A]doption of the Sykes 
rule in an effort to conserve judicial resources by eliminating the necessity 
for hearings on the merits of constitutional claims ultimately may create 
substantially more work for the lower federal courts and result in the 
elaboration of amorphous rules to determine the circumstances under which the 
merits of a constitutional claim can be avoided."

 
 

WYOMING POST-CONVICTION 
RELIEF

 
 

[¶119.]            
When we recognize that in the 26 1/2-year history of Wyoming post-conviction 
relief, petitioners have benefited from conviction reversal only once, 
applications of the stringent and denuding efficacy of principles here stated 
simply afford a judicial expungement of a legislative remedy to assure 
constitutional rights. In majority opinion, the court stated the conclusion for 
determination whether counsel's performance was constitutionally deficient 
"should be analyzed in much the same way that this court has analyzed the 
concept of plain error." However, application of the plain-error concept to 
waiver and forfeiture was specifically rejected by the United States Supreme 
Court in United States v. Frady, supra, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S. Ct. 1584, and Engle 
v. Isaac, supra, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S. Ct. 1558.

 
 

[¶120.]            
The majority syllogism presented to deny constitutional relief when 
counsel made a mistake in pre-conviction processes or in failing to raise a 
legitimate issue on appeal as constitutionally deficient, including in essential 
context recognition of both an admitted constitutional issue and mistake, 
supposes disposition:

 
 

(1) analyzed in concept 
of plain error;

 
 

(2) with particularized 
facts presented;

 
 

(3) sufficient to 
identify a clear and unequivocal rule of law;

 
 

(4) demonstrating 
transgression as clear and obvious;

 
 

(5) to then cause an 
adverse effect on substantial right; and then, so this court says:

 
 

"* * * The claim of 
inadequate representation by appellate counsel could have been resolved by the 
application of the objective criteria set forth above rather than an examination 
of the merits of the claimed issues or simply an ad hoc analysis of them by the 
court to determine what its members might have done differently. When the 
objective criteria are invoked and the district court then is persuaded that 
appellate counsel did make a mistake which was prejudicial to the rights of the 
petitioner, appropriate relief can be afforded by ordering a new trial or in the 
alternative a reinstatement of the direct appeal so that the issue may be 
presented."

 
 

This syllogism adjusts 
nothing and denies everything in an effort to excuse unintended counsel mistake 
in order to validate constitutional-right forfeiture. Authority even from the 
cause-and-prejudice decisions of the current United States Supreme Court idiom 
cannot be equivalently denied. Evitts v. Lucey, supra, and Kimmelman v. 
Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 106 S. Ct. 2574, 91 L. Ed. 2d 305 (1986). Even at best, the Wyoming Constitution has been 
obnubilated.

 
 

[¶121.]            
Inquiry is then required whether protection of the Wyoming Constitution 
has been denied and extinguished so completely that the present result is 
justified by past precedent of this court. To be repetitive, we are not here 
concerned with res judicata in appealed issues, but with intrinsic 
constitutional forfeiture from counsel mistakes.

 
 

[¶122.]            
Pote v. State, Wyo., 733 P.2d 1018 (1987), although result-oriented in 
conclusory product, addressed issues of original appeal, and not why effective 
counsel would more adequately have presented issues in that appeal. See 
likewise, Wright v. State, Wyo., 718 P.2d 35 
(1986); Hoggatt v. State, Wyo., 606 P.2d 718 
(1980); Johnson v. State, Wyo., 592 P.2d 285 
(1979); Munoz v. Maschner, 
Wyo., 590 P.2d 1352 (1979). No 
formula is required for scholarly analysis that the claimed mistake as subject 
to unintended procedural default simply lacks merit for further guilt 
determination and constitutional guarantee inquiry if claimed, considered, and 
denied by earlier appeal review.

 
 

[¶123.]            
I find now that apparently nothing has been learned or remembered since 
Frank v. Mangum, supra, in 1915, when the great jurists of that time, Justices 
Holmes and Hughes, first alerted society to obligations of the justice-delivery 
system. Rather than encasing the protective complex in a reflective armor of 
impenetrability, I would simply say that, assuming res judicata is not properly 
applied, the issue is: was there error, and was it prejudicial? If a right was 
waived which was meritorious, obviously there was error, and that leaves only 
the remaining question of prejudice to be defined and applied. The deliberate 
bypass of Fay was intended to confine unintended procedural default to proper 
remedial context. By the evisceration of Sykes in rule acceptance of cause and 
prejudice, this court now in singular fashion writes out the Wyoming 
Constitutional declaration of rights in following the political pragmatism of 
another court.

 
 

RICKEY CUTBIRTH ISSUES IN 
CONTEXT

 
 

[¶124.]            
Although the issues created in this appeal are clearly more divisive and 
pervasive than just the status of Rickey Cutbirth who, after all, has only a 
sentence of 20 years to life to serve, his case requires factual analysis of the 
issues presented to the trial court by the uncounseled, pro-se petition for 
post-conviction relief.

 
 

[¶125.]            
The first required inquiry is to determine issues presented on appeal as 
compared to issues later raised on post-conviction-relief petition to determine 
comparability or preclusion. As resolved by this court in Cutbirth v. State, 
Wyo., 663 P.2d 888, 889 (1983), those were:

 
 

"`1. Whether the evidence 
is sufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that appellant killed his 
wife "maliciously and purposely."

 
 

"`2. Whether the evidence 
indicates the appellant's conduct was, at most, negligent.

 
 

"`3. Whether the jury 
instructions on involuntary manslaughter misdefined the elements of offense and 
were so confusing and misleading that they deprived the appellant of a lesser 
included offense instruction and constitute plain error.'"21

 
 

[¶126.]            
Now in this proceeding, the issues presented by Cutbirth in his 
comprehensively composed petition for post-conviction relief 
included:

 
 

(1) Involuntary nature of 
interrogation responses because of fraud in failure to advise that Mrs. Cutbirth 
had died.

 
 

(2) Admission of part of 
the interrogation exchange and suppression of part as claimed to deny equal 
protection.

 
 

(3) The same subject as 
the claimed deceptive interrogation as invoked in (2).

 
 

(4) Denial of compulsory 
process and right to a fair and impartial trial through ineffective assistance 
of counsel in (a) failure of counsel by discovery to secure availability of the 
white, long-sleeved shirt worn by defendant; and (b) failure of counsel to 
secure appropriate testing and expert witness examination to have expert-opinion 
analysis for trial.

 
 

[¶127.]            
Responsive to the petition, the State contended in its brief: (a) 
Post-conviction relief is inappropriate to review an issue that could or should 
have been raised on appeal; and (b) the record does not support petitioner's 
allegation that his constitutional rights were violated.22

 
 

[¶128.]            
The issues defined by appellant in his present brief, in addition to the 
new-trial appeal, include: (1) ineffective assistance of counsel on appeal; (2) 
introduction of trial evidence of bad acts under Rule 404(b), W.R.E.; and (3) 
violation of appellant's constitutional rights in interrogation by being 
compelled to give evidence against himself. What is presented is a claim of 
ineffectiveness of appellate counsel in failure to raise issues of the 
voluntariness of the interrogation examination, generically called a confession, 
and in failure to request consideration of the trial-court error in admission of 
bad-acts evidence. The decision on the interrogation testimony as what part was 
suppressed and what part was admitted resulted from a pretrial suppression 
hearing. Likewise, proper objection was taken to the admission into evidence of 
prior marital difficulties and physical abuse resulting in a denied motion in 
limine.

 
 

[¶129.]            
In rational review of the actual record, little question exists but that 
the bad-acts evidence and the attached interrogation issues should have been 
presented on appeal to adequately protect the due-process and 
non-self-incrimination interests of the defendant. This failure is not 
particularly differentiable from failure of a lawyer to meet requirements of a 
statute of limitations invoking a reasonable probability sufficient to undermine 
confidence in the outcome. See State v. Moorman, 320 N.C. 387, 358 S.E.2d 502 
(1987), where reversal occurred for a number of counseling defects but 
especially failure to provide any evidence of what was announced as a defense in 
opening statement. See also Robison v. Maynard, 829 F.2d 1501 (10th Cir. 1987), 
failure to raise significant appellate issue in state court appeal 
(prosecutorial misconduct) is ineffectiveness of counsel. It must be remembered 
that under Engle the possibility of a later appellate change in basic law must 
be anticipated in discerning what is novelty. Smith v. Murray, supra, 477 U.S. 527, 106 S. Ct. 2661; 
Reed v. Ross, supra, 468 U.S. 1, 104 S. Ct. 2901; Desist v. United 
States, 394 U.S. 244, 89 S. Ct. 1030, 22 L. Ed. 2d 248, reh. denied 395 U.S. 931, 89 S. Ct. 1766, 23 L. Ed. 2d 251 (1969).

 
 

[¶130.]            
Under this subject as now presented, the constitutional inquiry 
requirement assumes a complex parameter. No one should really question the right 
to effective assistance of counsel to avoid uncoerced confession and to limit 
conviction to pertinent evidence not polluted by bad-acts and unrelated 
character testimony. The actual question is whether the discretional decision 
(which clearly it was) of the trial court, on admission of evidence, even if 
improperly exercised, will now achieve a constitutional-right-denial status 
within the purview of the post-conviction-relief statute. This thesis is 
directed to the inquiry whether what could be a reversible error on appeal 
becomes a constitutionally denied right in post-conviction review after 
procedural default resulting from mistake of appellate counsel.

 
 

[¶131.]            
I would advance in philosophical premise the admonition of Chief Justice 
Warren in Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 449, 82 S. Ct. 917, 8 L. Ed. 2d 21 (1962):

 
 

"* * * When society acts 
to deprive one of its members of his life, liberty or property, it takes its 
most awesome steps. No general respect for, nor adherence to, the law as a whole 
can well be expected without judicial recognition of the paramount need for 
prompt, eminently fair and sober criminal law procedures. The methods we employ 
in the enforcement of our criminal law have aptly been called the measures by 
which the quality of our civilization may be judged."

 
 

[¶132.]            
I would remand for a factual hearing on the motion for new trial, and for 
adequate consideration of the basis presented for post-conviction relief, 
uncluttered by the waiver-defined escape from substantive merit 
review.

 
 

FOOTNOTES

 
 

1 The right-to-appointed-counsel 
issue did not develop since appointment of an attorney was not requested in the 
petition. Fondren v. State, Wyo., 749 P.2d 767 
(1988); Alberts v. State, Wyo., 745 P.2d 898 
(1987); Long v. State, Wyo., 745 P.2d 547 (1987). See § 7-14-104, 
W.S. 1977.

 
 

2 "A combination for epigrammatic 
effect of contradictory or incongruous words," Webster's Third New International 
Dictionary, as here applied to be a stated legal rule encompassing a total 
contradiction in logic as a paradox or self-contradiction.

 
 

3 There is a smoldering, 
self-consuming rot in the American adjudicatory system which first demands an 
unavailable level of cost investment and performance attainment of defense 
counsel, and, if not achieved, imposes a guilt responsibility on the client 
which may be factually unjustified. The politically fueled, ongoing 
counterrevolution against constitutional rights process protection has 
accelerated the cataclysm. See Whitebread and Heilman, The Counterrevolution 
Enters a New Era: Criminal Procedure Decisions During the Final Term of the 
Burger 
Court, 10 U. Puget Sound L.Rev. 571 (1987). Any still 
in doubt should be invited to view The Murder of Mary Phagan (NBC television 
broadcast, January 24 and 26, 1988), and then read Frank v. State, 141 Ga. 243, 
80 S.E. 1016 (1914); Frank v. State, 142 Ga. 617, 83 S.E. 233 (1914); Ex parte 
Frank, 235 U.S. 694, 35 S. Ct. 208, 59 L. Ed. 429 (1914); and Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 35 S. Ct. 582, 59 L. Ed. 969 
(1915), Justice Holmes and Justice Hughes, dissenting. Neither the Ku Klux Klan 
of the Twenties and Thirties nor the totalitarianism of Italy, Germany, and the Soviet 
Union of those same decades and following, emerged without failed 
processes to provide constitutional guarantees. Cf. O'Neill, The Good, The Bad, 
and The Burger 
Court: Victims' Rights and a New Model of Criminal 
Review, 75 J. of Crim. Law and Criminology 363 (1984). In current time, with 
direct reference to now newly discovered evidence, it is valuable to consider 
the ongoing saga of life or execution of Willie Darden, Darden v. State, Fla., 
329 So. 2d 287 (1976), cert. dismissed 430 U.S. 704, 97 S. Ct. 1671, 51 L. Ed. 2d 751 (1977); Darden v. Wainwright, 725 F.2d 1526 (11th Cir.), cert. denied 467 U.S. 1230, 104 S. Ct. 2688, 81 L. Ed. 2d 882 (1984), cert. granted and judgment 
vacated 469 U.S. 1202, 105 S. Ct. 1158, 84 L. Ed. 2d 311 (1985); Darden v. 
Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 106 S. Ct. 2464, 91 L. Ed. 2d 144, reh. denied ___ U.S. 
___, 107 S. Ct. 24, 92 L. Ed. 2d 774 (1986), as last considered by the United 
States Supreme Court in Wainwright v. Darden, ___ U.S. ___, 107 S. Ct. 332, 93 L. Ed. 2d 304 (1986), and as the current subject of two television special program 
analyses, West 57th Street (CBS television broadcast, January 30, 1988) and 
20-20 (ABC television broadcast, January 29, 1988). The attributes of the 
American justice-delivery system were never so closely and publicly in 
question.

 
 
Whether guilty or innocent, fairly 
convicted or victimized by prosecutorial zeal and witness misinformation, Darden 
was executed March 15, 1988, four days after release of this 
opinion.

 
 

4 It is improper for a court to 
penalize a defendant who exercises the constitutional right to require 
conviction and assert innocence. United 
States v. Araujo, 539 F.2d 287 (2d Cir.), cert. denied 429 U.S. 983, 97 S. Ct. 498, 50 L. Ed. 2d 593 (1976); United States v. Duffy, 479 F.2d 1038 (2d Cir.), 
cert. denied 414 U.S. 978, 94 S. Ct. 299, 38 L. Ed. 2d 221 (1973); State v. 
Lawrence, 112 Idaho 149, 730 P.2d 1069 (App. 1986). 
Specifically applicable in analogous factual status is Thomas v. 
United 
States, 368 F.2d 941 (5th Cir. 
1966).

 
 

5 Intrinsic to the intelligent review 
of failure of representation is the ignorance and understanding of difference 
between incompetency and ineffectiveness. Obviously, the incompetent may likely 
be ineffective. However, to be ineffective does not require incompetency. In 
agreement, at least in this regard, with the strong posture of now retired 
United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William Burger, there may be evidenced 
in many cases a simple lack in aptitude, education, or technical skill of the 
attorney to adequately perform the extraordinarily demanding responsibilities of 
a trial or appellate counsel. This is not dissimilar from the fact that not 
every person can achieve status as a professional basketball player or 
recognized opera singer. Cf. McDonald v. Estelle, 590 F.2d 153 (5th Cir. 1979), 
where the terms "ineffective assistance" and "incompetency" were used 
interchangeably.

 
 

6 In Burton's Legal Thesaurus, supra, synonyms for 
Justice Frankfurter's word "jejune," a word certainly not frequently seen, are 
obviously applicable in the context of either dull or lacking 
maturity:

 
 
"JEJUNE (Dull), 
adjective

 
 
"bleak, boresome, boring, colorless, 
common, commonplace, drearisome, dreary, dry, flat, flavorless, hollow, 
indifferent, insipid, monotonous, ordinary, plain, ponderous, prosaic, prosy, 
stolid, tame, tasteless, tedious, thin, tiresome, torpid, undramatic, 
unenlivened, unentertaining, unexciting, unimpassioned, uninspired, uninspiring, 
unlively, unpointed, unspirited, usual, vacuous, vapid, weak, 
wearisome

 
 
"JEJUNE (Lacking maturity), 
adjective

 
 
"adolescent, babyish, callow, 
childish, immature, inexperienced, infantile, infantine, juvenile, puerile, 
unfledged, unlearned" Burton's Legal Thesaurus at 
300.

 
 

7 Entitled "Prisoner's Constitutional 
Rights," it was:

 
 
"AN ACT to provide a remedy for 
persons convicted and imprisoned in the penitentiary, who assert that rights 
guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States or the State of Wyoming, or both, have 
been denied or violated in proceedings in which they were 
convicted."

 
 

8 Although it was stated in a 
different context, I differ from Professor Charles Alan Wright in his book 
review of William F. Dooker, A Constitutional History of Habeas Corpus (1980), 
in Habeas Corpus: Its History and Its Future, 81 Mich.L. Rev. 802 (1983), and 
predecessor Friendly, The Fifth Amendment Tomorrow: The Case for Constitutional 
Change, 37 U.Cin.L.Rev. 671, 678 (1968), in observing that the history of 
post-conviction relief in adjudicatory developments of law in a civilized 
society is not only absorbing but also a vade mecum for understanding the 
present status of American law. Post-conviction relief in all aspects is also 
not unnoticed in A.L.R. treatment in current articles, including Annot., 2 
A.L.R.4th 807, Waiver or estoppel in incompetent legal representation cases; 
Annot., 26 A.L.R.Fed. 218, Modern Status of Rule as to Test in Federal Court of 
Effective Representation by Counsel; Annot., 13 A.L.R.4th 533, Adequacy of 
defense counsel's representation of criminal client regarding post-plea 
remedies; Annot., 15 A.L.R.4th 583, Adequacy of defense counsel's representation 
of criminal client regarding appellate and postconviction remedies; Annot., 83 L. Ed. 2d 1112, When is attorney's representation of criminal defendant so 
deficient as to constitute denial of federal constitutional right to effective 
assistance of counsel - Supreme Court cases.

 
 

9 In enacting the differentiated 
Illinois version of post-conviction relief, the 
Wyoming 
legislature has not taken the opportunity to adopt the original uniform act or 
the most current text adopted in 1980. See Uniform Post-Conviction Procedure 
Act, 9B U.L.A. (1966) and 11 U.L.A., Criminal Law and Procedure, together with 
1987 Pocket Part. The philosophic backdrop of the place of post-conviction 
relief is carefully reviewed in IV ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Ch. 22 
(1986). An omnibus type of process is recommended by Standard 18.3, National 
Prosecution Standards (National District Attorneys Association) (1st ed. 1977). 
Standard 6.5, National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and 
Goals (1973), accommodates a somewhat different standard. All recognize the need 
of the corrective process with difference or scope as indicated. Until the 
decision in this case, the Wyoming statute more nearly followed the 
American Bar Association standard. After this decision, it probably does not 
comply with any.

 
 

10 The specific constitutional issue 
considered was constitutional right to assistance of counsel, following Powell 
v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S. Ct. 55, 77 L. Ed. 158 (1932), and Patton v. 
United States, 281 U.S. 276, 50 S. Ct. 253, 74 L. Ed. 854 
(1930). In more recent time, the constitutional calender invokes dissertation 
whether this means effective assistance of counsel, assistance of effective 
counsel, or just presence and moderate participation of someone admitted to 
practice law. The caucus denial of perfect representation is to censure 
expectable legal responsibility as inept and incompetent. Cf. Strickland v. 
Washington, supra, 466 U.S.  at 687, 104 S. Ct.  at 2064, "the 
proper standard for attorney performance is that of reasonably effective 
assistance," however then conversely stated, "`within the range of competence 
demanded of attorneys in criminal cases.'" Apparently the author of the majority 
opinion in that case did not know the difference, and cases since spawned have 
failed to delineate between concepts that a lawyer is a lawyer is a lawyer, or 
that the lawyer made mistakes from which implied forfeiture of constitutional 
rights may be judicially decreed.

 
 
"The right to counsel is a 
fundamental right of criminal defendants; it assures the fairness, and thus the 
legitimacy, of our adversary process. * * * The essence of an ineffective 
assistance claim is that counsel's unprofessional errors so upset the 
adversarial balance between defense and prosecution that the trial was rendered 
unfair and the verdict rendered suspect." Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 374, 106 S. Ct. 2574, 2583, 
91 L. Ed. 2d 305 (1986).

 
 
The right to counsel is the right to 
effective assistance of counsel, and extends to appeal. Evitts v. Lucey, supra, 
469 U.S. 387, 105 S. Ct. 830.

 
 

11 It is to be observed that 
charismatic and sloganistic attacks on constitutional-guarantee protections of 
the United States Constitution as a castigation of the Warren Court are 
uninformed unless the philosophy and application of the Constitution by Justices 
Hughes, Holmes, and Vinson are first disinherited.

 
 

12 In Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S.  at 462-463, 105 S. Ct.  at 872, 
Justice Brennan stated:

 
 
"Today's opinion for the Court is 
the product of a saddening confluence of three of the most disturbing trends in 
our constitutional jurisprudence respecting the fundamental rights of our 
people. The first is the Court's unseemly eagerness to recognize the strength of 
the State's interest in efficient law enforcement and to make expedient 
sacrifices of the constitutional rights of the criminal defendant to such 
interests. * * * The second is the Court's increasing disaffection with the 
previously unquestioned principle, endorsed by every Member of this Court, that 
`because of its severity and irrevocability, the death penalty is qualitatively 
different from any other punishment, and hence must be accompanied by unique 
safeguards . . .' * * * The third is the Court's increasingly expansive 
definition of `questions of fact' calling for application of the presumption of 
correctness of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) to thwart vindication of fundamental rights 
in the federal courts. * * * These trends all reflect the same desolate truth: 
we have lost our sense of the transcendent importance of the Bill of Rights to 
our society. * * * We have lost too our sense of our own role as Madisonian 
`guardians' of these rights. * * * Like the death-qualified juries that the 
prosecution can now mold to its will to enhance the chances of victory, this Court increasingly acts as the adjunct 
of the State and its prosecutors in facilitating efficient and expedient 
conviction and execution irrespective of the Constitution's fundamental 
guarantees. One can only hope that this day too will soon pass. (Emphasis 
added.)

 
 

13 Compare O'Connor v. Ohio, 385 U.S. 92, 93, 87 S. Ct. 252, 254, 17 L. Ed. 2d 189 (1966), "failure to object to a 
practice which Ohio had long allowed cannot strip [the petitioner] of his right 
to attack the practice following its invalidation by this Court," with McMann v. 
Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 90 S. Ct. 1441, 25 L. Ed. 2d 763 (1970), not attack 
guilty plea sentence based on coerced conviction subsequently subject to 
invalidation by Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S. Ct. 1774, 12 L. Ed. 2d 908 
(1964), with current cases, Engle v. Isaac, supra, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S. Ct. 1558, 
with Reed v. Ross, supra, 468 U.S. 1, 104 S. Ct. 2901. Finally, we have State v. 
Murray, supra, and most recently Yates v. Aiken, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S. Ct. 534, 98 L. Ed. 2d 546 (1988).

 
 
This kind of pragmatic 
political-theory dominated chargeability affords a slender reed upon which a 
firm foundation for Wyoming constitutional law can be built. This 
is stare decisis by the month or four-year election results. I would ask again, 
what is the purpose of constitutional rights in the justice-delivery (criminal 
justice) system? See Chemerinsky, Thinking About Habeas Corpus, 37 Case 
W.Res.L.Rev. 748, 775 (1986).

 
 

14 If it is to be believed that 
democratic processes have any extended future in this society, it must be 
recognized that standards and principles of the law must have a basic individual 
acceptability. Assuming that concept, small doubt remains that political-dogma 
substitutes for constitutional processes can have only a brief validity time. As 
separate-but-equal could not survive in this democracy, so also a substitute of 
pragmatism in fault found will not alone continue as a substitute for due 
process and constitutional rights to be maintained. No exceptional scholarly 
aptitude is required to recognize adaptations denied in fairness are only 
briefly to remain. Procedural default from unintended waiver fits precisely and 
however inflicted upon other courts need not become a termite within the 
foundation of this state's law. See Interpreting the State Constitution, 
supra.

 
 
"For the judge is not seated to give 
away the just things as a gratification, but to judge them, for he has not sword 
to gratify whoever seems favorable to him, but to give judgment according to the 
laws." Plato's Apology of Socrates, Four Texts on Socrates, translated with 
notes by Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West, p. 63 
(1984).

 
 
"In the age of image, of popularity, 
of emotionalism, it is vital that we help our fellow citizens to see how 
important substance is, how indispensable courage and rationality are, how 
essential the rule of law remains to a free society." Speech by Chief Justice 
Rose Elizabeth Bird, January 4, 1987.

 
 

15 If the pessimism of reflected 
constitutional concern seems extended, two even more disturbing evaluations can 
be found in the most current literature. Kinoy, The Present Constitutional 
Crisis, 27 Wn.burn L.J. 1 (1987); Hentoff, The Constitution as an Endangered 
Species, 22 Gonzaga L.Rev. 419 (1987/88); Williams, Where is Freedom: Federal or 
State Constitutions?, 30 Howard L.J. 507 (1987).

 
 

16 In his address to the Conference of 
Chief Justices 24 years ago, Justice Brennan concluded with these 
remarks:

 
 
"We must remember these rapid 
changes when alarm is expressed that constitutional change is coming too fast 
and going too far. For, in today's world, what our constitutional fundamentals 
meant to the wisdom of other times cannot be their measure to the vision of our 
time. You and I are committed to the constitutional ideal of libertarian dignity 
protected through law. Crises at hand and in prospect are creating, and will 
create, more and more threats to the achievement of that ideal - more and more 
collisions of the individual with his government. The need for judicial 
vigilance in the service of that ideal was never greater. It has become the 
business of all of us to protect fundamental constitutional rights threatened 
today in ways not possibly envisaged by the Framers."

 
 

17 I hope that no case for which I am 
called to function in the constitutional responsibility of this office will 
afford similar future comment from the federal judiciary.

 
 

18 A ten-minute interview with a 
defendant in a pleaded-out felony, in the opinion of this writer, should be a 
basis of near-automatic suspension for mental incompetency and per se negligent 
malpractice.

 
 

19 I would apply the general logic and 
the admonition found in Rheenen, Inequitable Treatment of Ineffective Assistance 
Litigants, 19 Ind. L.Rev. 159, 168 (1986):

 
 
"The problem described here is a 
classic example of rules founded in reason gradually becoming senseless 
dogma."

 
 

20 Nor will I separate from what is 
slothful, negligent, ignorant, just wrong, or whatever else might constitute 
ineffectiveness, from what is just "unethical." See Jones v. Barnes, supra, 463 U.S.  at 754, 103 S. Ct.  at 3314, 
Blackmun, J., concurring. This concept also accommodates my disagreement with 
philosophical acceptance of the critique of capital defense attorney David Bruck 
that current minimum standards for effectiveness of counsel have been met "if a 
mirror held under counsel's nose clouds up." Standard 11.2, National Legal Aid 
& Defender Association, Standards for the Appointment and Performance of 
Counsel in Death Penalty Cases at 51, 53 n. 2 (1987), quoting from the Los 
Angeles Daily Journal (September 30, 1986).

 
 

21Cutbirth, as was the case with Kortz 
v. State, Wyo., 746 P.2d 435 (1987), demonstrates that 
definition of appellate issues on appeal requires a level of experience and 
supervision which may not properly be afforded by intern programs unless more 
comprehensive supervision is provided. The architect of what we now call 
"waiver" arose in brief writing in Cutbirth v. State, supra, by a senior law 
student intern program. Those programs are valuable in training, but not 
necessarily constitutional in waived justice. See also Engberg v. State, Wyo., 
686 P.2d 541, cert. denied 469 U.S. 1077, 105 S. Ct. 577, 83 L. Ed. 2d 516 (1984); 
and Engberg v. State, No. 87-15, now pending in this court on 
post-conviction-relief petition, where more than a dozen realistic appeal issues 
were not "found" by appellate counsel on original appeal. Who have been 
responsible for the error and neglect has not been explored in present 
proceedings.

 
 

22In amended petition for 
post-conviction relief, strongly stated additional contentions were made 
involving theft of property and prosecutorial misconduct, which contentions are 
not presented in this appeal as issues now stated and thus will not be reviewed. 
Appellant did clearly raise the question of ineffectiveness of appellate 
counsel, to which the State responded that lack of identification of acts 
foreclosed relief. Lack of effectiveness of appellate counsel is near mechanical 
in definitional character by record review to determine constitutionally 
challenged events leading to conviction.