Title: Swazo v. State

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Swazo v. State1990 WY 128800 P.2d 1152Case Number: 90-279Decided: 11/26/1990Supreme Court of Wyoming
DAVID SWAZO, 

PETITIONER,

v.

THE STATE OF WYOMING, 

RESPONDENT.

ORDER 
GRANTING MOTION TO PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS; ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR 
APPOINTMENT OF COUNSEL; AND ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT OF 
CERTIORARI

[¶1]      Petitioner herein 
having filed a Motion to Proceed in Forma Pauperis; a Motion for Appointment of 
Counsel and a Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Wyoming Supreme Court to 
review a decision by the District Court, Third Judicial District, Sweetwater 
County, Wyoming in the case entitled David Swazo v. State of Wyoming, Criminal 
No. 86-66, and it appearing that such writ should not be issued, it is therefore 

[¶2]      ORDERED that 
Petitioner's Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis is hereby granted; and it is 
further

[¶3]      ORDERED that 
Petitioner's Motion for Appointment of Counsel is hereby denied; and it is 
further

[¶4]      ORDERED that 
Petitioner's Petition for Writ of Certiorari is hereby denied.

URBIGKIT, C.J., and 
THOMAS, J., would have granted Petitioner's Petition for Writ of 
Certiorari.

URBIGKIT, C.J., filed an opinion 
in dissent.

URBIGKIT, Chief Justice, 
dissenting.

[¶5]      This court 
declines to review the district court's denial of David Swazo's petition for 
post-conviction relief brought under W.S. 7-14-101 through 7-14-108.1 Because this court violates W.S. 
7-14-103(a)(i) and Wyoming constitutional law when it declines to review 
a district court's denial of a post-conviction petition, I dissent. In short, if 
post-conviction petitions are brought to remedy violations of constitutional 
rights that could not have been raised on appeal, then declining to 
review a district court's denial of a petition for post-conviction relief 
forecloses even any evaluation of the potential for constitutional 
violation in securing a conviction. This, I believe, necessarily violates W.S. 
7-14-103(a)(i) and substantive due process under Wyoming's constitutional 
law.

[¶6]      Although I am 
convinced that neither the legislature nor this court "can constitutionally deny 
[the] opportunity to a defendant-petitioner," Stogner v. State, 792 P.2d 1358, 
1368 (Wyo. 1990), Urbigkit, Justice, specially concurring, to apply for relief 
from any alleged constitutional error during the post-conviction process, my 
dissent here is based upon much narrower grounds.

[¶7]      W.S. 
7-14-103(a)(i) indicates a claim of constitutional violation is "procedurally 
barred and no court has jurisdiction to decide the claim if the claim * * * 
[c]ould have been raised but was not raised in a direct appeal from the 
proceeding which resulted in the petitioner's conviction[.]" Even assuming, for 
the sake of argument, that the legislature can control this court's appellate 
jurisdiction,2 W.S. 7-14-103(a)(i) allows a 
constitutional claim to be brought if that claim could not have been 
raised in direct appeal.3 The controlling question to W.S. 
7-14-103(a)(i) becomes "what constitutional claims could not be raised in direct 
appeal?" Inevitable discussion of waiver and forfeiture of rights 
guaranteed by the Wyoming Constitution employ a high degree of sophistry 
and factual invalidity. Waiver and forfeiture normally and unquestionably result 
from what the representing attorney does or fails to do and not what is done to 
their client, the accused defendant. Waiver and forfeiture comes inevitably 
charged with counsel mistake and ineffectiveness. Cutbirth v. State, 751 P.2d 1257 (Wyo. 1988), Urbigkit, Justice, dissenting.

[¶8]      Ineffectiveness 
of appellate counsel and newly discovered evidence are obviously appropriate 
claims for post-conviction relief, see Cutbirth, 751 P.2d  at 1260, but so too 
are "new rules" of constitutional law. "New rules" can be understood simply as 
new expressions of bedrock constitutional values that have become necessary to 
protect against new forms of governmental intrusion. Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 1073, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334, reh'g denied ___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 1771, 104 L. Ed. 2d 206 (1989)4 addresses "new rules" of federal 
constitutional law which have become needed to protect these bedrock 
constitutional values. These "new rules" reflect values both "`implicit in the 
concept of ordered liberty,'" Id. 109 S. Ct.  at 1073 (quoting Mackey v. United 
States, 401 U.S. 667, 693, 91 S. Ct. 1160, 1180, 28 L. Ed. 2d 404 (1971)), and so 
"rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as 
fundamental." Snyder v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105, 54 S. Ct. 330, 332, 78 L. Ed. 674 (1934). The idea of new rules "implicit in the 
concept of ordered liberty" is rooted in the traditions and consciences of our 
national community. An obvious example is Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 
349, 83 S. Ct. 792, 799, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799 (1963), which articulated the "new rule" 
that the right to counsel is a necessary condition precedent to any conviction 
for a serious crime. For additional examples, see Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44, 
107 S. Ct. 2704, 97 L. Ed. 2d 37 (1987) (Arkansas' per se rule excluding all 
hypnotically refreshed testimony infringes impermissibly on a criminal 
defendant's right to testify); Ford v. Wainright, 477 U.S. 399, 410, 106 S. Ct. 2595, 2602, 91 L. Ed. 2d 335 (1986) (the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution 
of insane people); and Burch v. Louisiana, 441 U.S. 130, 99 S. Ct. 1623, 60 L. Ed. 2d 96 (1979) (our right to trial by jury is violated by convictions 
obtained by a nonunanimous six person jury). The possibility always exists that 
a new rule of constitutional law may be required to protect constitutional 
values implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Because a defendant could not 
have necessarily raised a new rule during an appeal until that rule had been 
made legally cognizable by this court, this court should review district court 
denials of post-conviction relief petitions.

[¶9]      This court should 
not treat as unfamiliar the concept of "new rules" or "new rights" "`implicit in 
the concept of ordered liberty,'" Mackey, 401 U.S.  at 693, 91 S. Ct.  at 1180 
(quoting Justice Cardozo in Palko v. State of Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S. Ct. 149, 152, 82 L. Ed. 288 (1937)), which are formulated to protect bedrock 
constitutional values. Although not expressly reserved in the Wyoming 
Constitution, this court articulated a "new right" to protect bedrock 
constitutional values when we made legally cognizable the unenumerated "right to 
associate with one's family [as] a fundamental liberty * * *," Matter of GP, 679 P.2d 976, 981 (Wyo. 1984), under Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 2, "Equality of all"; 
art. 1, § 6, "Due process of law"; art. 1, § 7, "No absolute, arbitrary power"; 
and art. 1, § 36, reserved rights clause. See Employment Sec. Com'n of Wyoming 
v. Western Gas Processors, Ltd., 786 P.2d 866, 872 n. 10 and n. 11 (Wyo. 
1990).

[¶10]   Is there potentially nothing that 
happened during the conviction process, which deprived this citizen of liberty 
for fifteen to twenty-five years, that could violate bedrock constitutional 
procedures "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty?" See Mackey, 401 U.S.  at 
693, 91 S. Ct.  at 1180. Can we ever be so certain that the answer to this type of 
question must be "no" that we can constitutionally and statutorily deny 
review of a district court's denial of a post-conviction relief 
petition?

[¶11]   Is appellate protection against 
coerced confessions and guilty pleas a bedrock constitutional principle implicit 
in the concept of ordered liberty? Although not all constitutional errors 
require reversal if "the court [is] able to declare a belief that [the error] 
was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt," Chapman v. State of California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S. Ct. 824, 828, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705, reh'g denied 386 U.S. 987, 87 S. Ct. 1283, 18 L. Ed. 2d 241 (1967), "there are some constitutional rights so 
basic to a fair [conviction] that their infraction can never be treated as 
harmless error * * *." Id. at 23, 87 S. Ct.  at 827. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S. Ct. 1709, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274 (1969). In Boykin, a case reviewing the 
sentence of death by electrocution given to a young man for the crime of 
robbery, the United States Supreme Court reversed the conviction on substantive 
due process grounds because the trial judge had not ensured that the defendant's 
guilty plea had been voluntary. "[A] plea of guilty is more than an admission of 
conduct; it is a conviction. Ignorance, incomprehension, coercion, terror, 
inducements, subtle or blatant threats might be a perfect cover-up of 
unconstitutionality." Id. 89 S. Ct.  at 1712. See Gist v. State, 768 P.2d 1054, 
1056 (Wyo. 1989) (Boykin mandates substantive due process for criminal 
defendants). The possibility of ignorance, coercion, or terror requires 
appellate judges to assure confessions are voluntary. It is apparent that 
requiring a factual basis for a guilty plea becomes integral to that assurance. 
If a district court cannot establish a factual basis for a guilty plea, it seems 
possible that the "confession" may have been the result of ignorance, 
incomprehension, terror, inducement, or subtle or blatant threats. Because such 
a possibility cannot be foreclosed, we should not deny review of this 
post-conviction relief petition.

[¶12]   Did the district judge require the 
defendant to establish a factual basis for the guilty plea5 to ensure the plea was voluntary 
and not coerced - if nothing else - from being forced to live in prison for more 
than a year without being brought to trial? Do bedrock constitutional values of 
appellate substantive due process in Wyoming require this court to assure that 
guilty pleas have been made willingly and are grounded in fact? Surely no one in 
authority today argues to the contrary. The history, heritage and specific 
phraseology of W.R.Cr.P. 15(d) as well as W.R.Cr.P. 15(f) should establish the 
constitutional nature and confined application of the guilty plea. Cardenas v. 
Meacham, 545 P.2d 632 (Wyo. 1976).

The court shall not 
accept a plea of guilty or nolo contendere without first, by addressing the 
defendant personally in open court, determining that the plea is voluntary and 
not the result of force or threats or of promises apart from a plea agreement. 
The court shall also inquire as to whether the defendant's willingness to plead 
guilty or nolo contendere results from prior discussions between the attorney 
for the state and the defendant or his attorney.

W.R.Cr.P. 
15(d).

[¶13]   Swazo's petition for writ of 
certiorari alleges that, although the district judge could not find time to 
bring Swazo to trial during the many hundreds of days that Swazo was forced to 
live in prison, the district judge finally did find the time in his schedule to 
have Swazo brought before him once Swazo agreed to plead guilty and be 
sentenced. Swazo also alleges, inter alia, that when he pled guilty he was 
denied the facts needed to establish the elements for first degree sexual 
assault.6

[¶14]   The following excerpts are taken 
from the transcript of Swazo's "change of plea/sentencing" appearance before the 
district judge:

     COURT: Mr. Swazo, how 
[do] you plead to the charge of First Degree Sexual Assault, guilty or not 
guilty?

     MR. SWAZO: I plead 
guilty, Your Honor.

[¶15]   Later in the transcript, the 
dialogue continues:

     COURT: You make it 
sound like she got in the backseat willingly.

     MR. SWAZO: She came to 
the backseat willingly.

* * * * * *

     COURT: Did she resist 
you at all?

     MR. SWAZO: 
No.

     COURT: Not at 
all?

     MR. SWAZO: (Shaking 
head).

* * * * * *

     COURT: Didn't she 
resist you at all?

     MR. SWAZO: No, Your 
Honor.

[¶16]   I cannot find in the transcript 
where Swazo establishes a basis in fact for his guilty plea to first degree 
sexual assault as required by W.R.Cr.P. 15. In fact, it was the district judge 
and not Swazo who insisted on Swazo's guilt before he sentenced Swazo to fifteen 
to twenty-five years in prison.

     COURT: Then you 
performed your little tricks with her. The two men in the front of the truck 
cheered while she was being raped. Is that true?

     MR. SWAZO: No, Your 
Honor.

[¶17]   From the perspective of bedrock 
constitutional procedures, I find foreboding the remarks made by the district 
judge when he denied Swazo's petition for post-conviction relief. The judge said 
he realized Swazo's "conviction" would have to have been reversed had Swazo 
appealed his conviction, but he denied Swazo's petition for 
post-conviction relief because "post-conviction relief was never meant to become 
an extended appellate procedure * * *." (Emphasis added.) Because Swazo 
did not appeal, this court also understands that Swazo's fate is sealed by res 
judicata. See Stogner, 792 P.2d  at 1360 and Gist, 768 P.2d  at 1055.

[¶18]   The reasoning that leads me to 
believe that this court's refusal to review a denied petition for 
post-conviction relief necessarily violates W.S. 7-14-103(a)(i) also convinces 
me that the denial simultaneously violates substantive due process guarantees 
under Wyoming's constitution. I understand appellate substantive due process to 
require review of potential breaches of bedrock constitutional 
principles. I would not deny such review because that permits potentially 
harmful constitutional violations by trial judges to be quietly swept under our 
procedural carpet. 

[¶19]   My understanding of Wyoming 
appellate substantive due process is formed, in part, by my belief in and 
understanding of natural rights. "There are those who maintain that man has no 
natural rights; that none can exist except in society, and that whatever rights 
he has, he, accordingly, receives from society. However that may be 
theoretically, natural rights are recognized by our constitution." State v. 
Langley, 53 Wyo. 332, 342, 84 P.2d 767, 770 (1938). While I agree that 
individual rights and majoritarian rule are treated as relative to one another 
and are therefore subjected to "balancing," I believe we violate Wyoming's 
appellate substantive due process when we deny review of a denied 
post-conviction relief petition. Some delegates to Wyoming's constitutional 
convention relied upon the notion of a right to appeal as a natural right.7 So do I - and I understand that 
constitutional right to inform the power of our post-conviction statute, W.S. 
7-14-103, but this court is skeptical that such a right extends to require 
review of denied petitions for post-conviction relief. The difference 
between the majority and myself in this regard is one of attitude toward 
resolving the tension between individual rights and majority rule.

     From elementary school 
on, we have all been raised on the truism that our political tradition contains 
two components - a commitment to majority rule and a commitment to individual 
rights - that these two components are often in a state of conflict or tension. 
The crucial operative aspect of rights skepticism is its attitude toward the 
resolution of this systemic tension. When a rights-supporting value of the 
Constitution is understood to be in arguable conflict with majority conduct, the 
rights skeptic insists that the case for the recognition of the right be made 
only under circumstances of textual, historical, or structural certainty; 
otherwise the majoritarian result must prevail. Under this conception, rights 
are narrowly defined exceptions to an otherwise prevailing general commitment to 
majority rule.

* * * * * *

* * * For the rights 
skeptic, rights exist as a function of majority will; they exist because they 
are, or at least they were, willed by the majority. Harmony with our 
constitutional tradition, in contrast, demands an analytical structure pursuant 
to which both majority will and individual rights pend to a common seminal 
principle. One likely candidate is the principle that individuals are to be 
treated as individuals possessed of discrete and equal worth.

Sager, Rights 
Skepticism and Process-Based Responses, 56 N YU.L.Rev. 417, 441-45 (1981). The 
"balance" we strike between individual rights and majority power should 
be kept in harmony with our constitutional tradition. If we accept a 
constitutional tradition in which we are unified as a national community by our 
political commitment to individual rights and majority rule, then we should not 
proceed from the premise that the balance we strike between the two is a "fixed 
winner-take-all [result that is dictated] by the majority's wishes." See 
Dworkin, Liberal Community, 77 Cal.L.Rev. 479, 483-84 (1989). Our constitutional 
tradition does not encourage a legal landscape over which majority rule roams at 
will. The value of this harmonious balance between rights and power in Sager, 
supra, 56 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 417, appears very similar to the "golden mean" 
alluded to by Chief Justice Blume when he wrote to preserve substantive due 
process under Wyoming constitutional law during the sudden economic legislation 
occasioned by the Great Depression. Langley, 84 P.2d  at 
771-72.

[¶1.]     This court's confidence 
in the judgment of the district judge permits them to refuse to review 
that judgment. Before government deprives any of us of our lives, our liberties, 
or our properties, that process should be checked, double checked, and triple 
checked. While I leave it to the legislature to protect citizens from citizens, 
I believe courts are required by the constitution to protect citizens from 
government. In this case, there is no protection provided. For that reason, in 
conscience, I am called to dissent.

Footnotes

1 Swazo's first issue in 
his petition for post-conviction relief was for ineffectiveness of counsel. 
Swazo's first defense attorney withdrew from representation after his campaign 
for election as County Attorney proved successful in November 1986.

2 See Wyo.Const.art. 5, §§ 
2 and 3.

3 W.S. 7-14-103(d) 
provides that "[n]o petition under this act shall be allowed if filed more than 
five (5) years after the judgment of conviction was entered."

4 Two previous examples of 
"new rules" are the rule that the "Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of 
prisoners who are insane * * *" and the "per se rule excluding all 
hypnotically refreshed testimony [because it] infringes impermissibly on a 
criminal defendant's right to testify on his behalf * * *." Teague, 109 S. Ct.  at 
1070. Any citation of Teague does not suggest approval to apply the application 
of its cribbed and regressive judicial legislation to the proper utilization of 
the Wyoming Constitution. That case may now provide the "bare minimum" for 
constitutional responsibility of the federal judiciary and is to be so 
recognized, but in no way confines responsibility of the Wyoming Supreme Court 
for determinate protection of the Wyoming Constitution. I would agree with 
scholastic and judicial recognition that Teague, in deliberate diminution of 
constitutional protections, stands alone as a watershed in effecting "massive 
changes, unsupported by precedent [and without] * * * reasonable foundation." 
Id. at 1090, Brennan, Justice, dissenting. Cf. Penry v. Lynaugh, ___ U.S. ___, 
109 S. Ct. 2934, 106 L. Ed. 2d 256 (1989), Scalia, Justice, concurring in part and 
dissenting in part; Boshkoff, Resolving Retroactivity After Teague v. Lane, 65 
Ind.L.Rev. 651 (1990); Supreme Court Review, Sixth Amendment - The Evolution of 
the Supreme Court's Retroactivity Doctrine: A Futile Search for Theoretical 
Clarity, 80 J.Crim.L. & Criminology 1128 (1990); Recent Development, The 
Court Declines in Fairness - Teague v. Lane, 109 S. Ct. 1060 (1989), 25 
Harv.C.R.C.L.L.Rev. 164 (1990); Hoffmann, Retroactivity and the Great Writ: How 
Congress Should Respond to Teague v. Lane, 1990 B.Y.U.L.Rev. 183 (1990); 
Weisberg, A Great Writ While it Lasted, 81 J. of Crim.L. & Criminology 9 
(1990); and Goldstein, Expediting the Federal Habeas Corpus Review Process in 
Capital Cases: An Examination of Recent Proposals, 19 Cap.U.L.Rev. 599 (1990). 
See also Miller v. State, 784 P.2d 209, 214 (Wyo. 1989), Urbigkit, Justice, 
dissenting; Schuler v. State, 771 P.2d 1217, 1222 (Wyo. 1989), Urbigkit, 
Justice, dissenting; and Note, Post Conviction Relief: Do It Once, Do It Right 
and be Done With It, XXIV Land & Water L.Rev. 473 (1989). Note also in 
recent analogy of the Romans salting the earth of defeated Carthage, 
Chemerinsky, Stunting the Constitution's Growth, 26 Trial 36 (November 
1990).

Teague does, however, 
portray a limit in its application of constitutional principles that the federal 
judiciary has not abdicated for enforcement of the United States Constitution in 
concepts of fundamental fairness. Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 91 S. Ct. 1160, 28 L. Ed. 2d 404 (1971); Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 89 S. Ct. 1030, 22 L. Ed. 2d 248, reh'g denied 395 U.S. 931, 89 S. Ct. 1766, 23 L. Ed. 2d 251 (1969).

This court, by the 
present unexplained petition, denial, decision and rejection of a right of 
appeal, provides no plain statement otherwise creating possible defenses of 
procedural default which might be applied to disallow further proceedings. 
Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 109 S. Ct. 1038, 103 L. Ed. 2d 308 (1989); Michigan 
v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S. Ct. 3469, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1201 (1983); Nunnemaker v. 
Ylst, 896 F.2d 1200 (9th Cir.), cert. granted ___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 384, ___ 
L.Ed.2d ___ (1990).

5 W.R.Cr.P. 15(f) provides 
that "[n]otwithstanding the acceptance of a plea of guilty, the court should not 
enter a judgment upon such plea without making such inquiry as shall satisfy it 
that there is a factual basis for the plea."

6 W.S. 6-2-302 
provides:

(a) Any actor who 
inflicts sexual intrusion on a victim commits a sexual assault in the first 
degree if:

(i) The actor causes 
submission of the victim through the actual application, reasonably calculated 
to cause submission of the victim, of physical force or forcible 
confinement;

(ii) The actor causes 
submission of the victim by threat of death, serious bodily injury, extreme 
physical pain or kidnapping to be inflicted on anyone and the victim reasonably 
believes that the actor has the present ability to execute these 
threats;

(iii) The victim is 
physically helpless, and the actor knows or reasonably should know that the 
victim is physically helpless and that the victim has not consented; 
or

(iv) The actor knows or 
reasonably should know that the victim through a mental illness, mental 
deficiency or developmental disability is incapable of appraising the nature of 
the victim's conduct.

7 Journals and Debates of 
the Wyoming Constitutional Convention 520-21 (1889).