Opinion ID: 2742016
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Restrained Donna Hawes, unlawfully;

Text: 6. In circumstances exposing her to risk of serious bodily injury. [¶15] At the jury instruction conference, counsel for Mr. Hawes objected to the omission of the word “felonious” from the description of the offense of felonious restraint. We will therefore review this issue concerning the title of the crime under an abuse of discretion standard, affording significant deference to the trial court’s decisions. “A trial court is given wide latitude in instructing the jury and, as long as the instructions correctly state the law and the instructions in their entirety sufficiently cover the relevant issue, reversible error will not be found.” Gonzalez-Ochoa v. State, 2014 WY 14, ¶ 18, 317 P.3d 599, 605 (Wyo. 2014) (quoting Duke v. State, 2004 WY 120, ¶ 90, 99 P.3d 928, 954 (Wyo. 2004)). [¶16] The trial court judge explained that he took out the word “felonious” and used only “restraint” in the instruction in order to avoid prejudice to the defendant. Mr. Hawes contends that the omission of the word “felonious” somehow misled the jury into believing that the lesser included offense was not a “serious crime.” Although we agree that a trial court does not have the discretion to change the words of the statute when it 5 drafts jury instructions, we find no abuse of discretion in this case because the jury did not reach the lesser included offense of felonious restraint; instead, it first considered and found Mr. Hawes guilty of the greater offense of kidnapping. When a greater and lesser offense are charged to the jury, the proper course is to tell the jury to consider first the greater offense, and to move on to consideration of the lesser offense only if they have some reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the greater offense. A jury that finds guilt as to the greater offense does not enter a verdict concerning guilt of the lesser offense. The reason for this absence of consideration is not any inconsistency between the offenses. It rather reflects the very ‘inclusion’ that defines the lesser offense as one ‘included’ in the greater. Janpol v. State, 2008 WY 21, ¶ 9, 178 P.3d 396, 400-01 (Wyo. 2008) (citations omitted). [¶17] This was the course followed in this case, in which the jury was instructed: If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that each of these elements [of kidnapping] has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, then you should find the defendant guilty of Kiddnapping [sic]. If, on the other hand, you find from your consideration of all of the evidence that any of these elements has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, then you should consider the lesser included offense of Restraint and the lesser included offense of False Imprisonment. [¶18] The verdict form likewise instructed the jury to consider first, the charge of kidnapping; and then only if it found Mr. Hawes “Not Guilty” of kidnapping, to go on to consider the lesser included offenses. The jury did find Mr. Hawes guilty of kidnapping, and thus had no occasion to consider the lesser included offense of felonious restraint. Because the jury was correctly instructed on the relevant issues, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s omission of the word “felonious” in the felonious restraint instruction. [¶19] Mr. Hawes also argues that the felonious restraint instruction failed to instruct the jury that the State must prove the accused acted knowingly on each element of the offense. Because this issue was not raised below, we apply a plain error standard to our review. “The plain error standard requires a defendant to establish that a violation of an unequivocal rule of law occurred. The record must clearly reflect the error, and the violation must result in the abridgment of a substantial right of the [defendant] to his 6 material prejudice.” Brown v. State, 2014 WY 104, ¶ 19, 332 P.3d at 1772 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). We afford the trial judge “latitude to tailor the instructions to the facts of the case, and reversible error will not be found as long as the instructions when viewed as a whole and in the context of the entire trial fairly and adequately cover the issues.” Keats v. State, 2003 WY 19, ¶ 8, 64 P.3d 104, 106-07 (Wyo. 2003) (quoting Scadden v. State, 732 P.2d 1036, 1053 (Wyo. 1987)). Because we have concluded that the jury had no occasion to consider the lesser included felonious restraint instruction, we find that any error in the instruction did not result in material prejudice to Mr. Hawes, and we affirm the district court on the jury instruction issue.