Opinion ID: 2609791
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction & venue

Text: McCone next argues that the district court lacked jurisdiction and did not have proper venue over the case because neither the place where the crimes were committed nor the corpus delicti of the crimes were ever established. Concerning venue, W.S. 1-7-102 (1988) provides: (a) Every criminal case shall be tried in the county in which the indictment or offense charged is found, except as otherwise provided by law. (b) When the location of a criminal offense cannot be established with certainty, venue may be placed in the county or district where the corpus delicti is found, or in any county or district in which the victim was transported. The Wyoming Constitution, Art. 1, § 10, provides in part: In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right    to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed. When the location of the offense cannot be established with certainty, venue may be placed in the county or district where the corpus delecti [delicti] is found, or in any county or district in which the victim was transported. McCone asserts that the place of origin of each of these threatening phone calls is where the offenses were found or committed, and since the places of origin for the calls were never established, then venue is proper only where the corpus delicti was found. However, the location of each of the charged crimes, i.e., where they were found or committed, was established with certainty. Although the phone calls may have originated elsewhere, each phone call was received and heard within Albany County. In Hopkinson v. State, 632 P.2d 79 (Wyo. 1981), we held that Wyoming had jurisdiction to try an individual for accessory to murder when the accessorial acts were committed through a phone line into Wyoming. In reaching that conclusion we stated: Many accessorial acts were actually committed in Wyoming in that it was in this state that the numerous phone calls were completed just as surely as though the appellant was standing on Wyoming soil when he communicated his requests and instructions to his agents and they were carried out. The telephone transmitted his presence into this jurisdiction where he could manipulate and play his local pawns. Hopkinson, 632 P.2d at 100. This reasoning applies equally to the facts of this case. McCone, regardless of where he dialed the phone, was transmitted into Albany County by the telephone, where his words were heard and had effect. See also State v. Levand, 37 Wyo. 372, 380-81, 262 P. 24 (1927) (holding that venue for a criminal libel prosecution is proper where the alleged libel was printed or circulated). McCone's actions, theoretically, are no different than the famous law school hypothetical where one person shoots from one jurisdiction and hits another person who is located in a different jurisdiction. In that scenario it has been held that the state where the criminal act takes effect, i.e., the bullet entering the victim, has jurisdiction and venue. Simpson v. State, 17 S.E. 984 (Ga.1893). Therefore, we hold that W.S. 1-7-102 and Art. 1, § 10 of the Wyoming Constitution grant venue and jurisdiction in the county where McCone made the phone call or where the phone call was received because the threats took effect in the county where they were received.