Opinion ID: 1454677
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: court decision to require appellant to testify in order to present his defense

Text: Appellant's defense to a first degree murder conviction was anchored on absence of intent to commit robbery to avoid felony murder and the lack of mental capacity to form the requisite specific intent to be guilty of premeditated murder. The first defense was shipwrecked by lack of a properly differentiated verdict form and the second defense went down when the trial court required appellant to testify as the price of establishing a foundation for the expert psychologist to testify. Then, after appellant had spilled his guts to authenticate his expert witness's appearance, the expert witness was stopped short from presenting his testimony on the basis that it would invade the province of the jury. This case personifies climactic developments during trial which denied appellant any real opportunity to defend or to even rationally approach presentation of a theory of his defense during the proceeding. Procedurally, structurally and academically, this case is so bad that even the laws of chance or chaos should foreclose repetition. Hope then exists that perhaps the detrimental law here created will confine itself by obviousness to only this case. Consequently, the extended dissection of the obviousness of the adjudicatory misdirection may be avoided. [3] There is no question that by trial court decision, the price for defense witness testimony was testimony by appellant himself. In result, appellant was required to prove his own guilt in order to have the opportunity to use his expert defense witness who would testify about character of factors which directly related to the charged guilt. I agree with neither the majority nor the special concurrence in judicial amendment for this decision to decimate the rights provided by both the federal and state constitutions against compelled self-incrimination. Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 11. No person shall be compelled to testify against himself in any criminal case. Id. [N]or shall he be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. U.S. Const. amend. V. Simply stated, by trial court action, appellant was foreclosed use of his defense witness unless he chose to testify. The results were anything but harmless. Clear, explicit and direct violations of the constitutional rights against self-incrimination were created. No one provides any authority that an effort to defend waives the right against self-incrimination. The error is not sugarcoated by the transference to waiver of the privilege by election to testify. Here, in order to have the assistance of a proposed witness, the trial court required that appellant first testify since, as a rule for the case, a defense of insanity had not been pleaded. The degree of the enormity of the mistake or the insufficiency of reasoning for justification defies my adequate characterization.