Court Opinion

ID: 9593876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:25:32.136702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:03:11.236225
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Retired Justice,
dissenting, with whom THOMAS, Justice, partially joins.
Instruction Number 13 served no purpose and should not have been given. However, if it was an error to give the instruction, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the bundle of instructions given, the court consistently told the jury that the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was under the influence of intoxicating liquor to a degree which rendered him incapable of safely driving a motor vehicle. The degree of intoxication that must be proved was repeated three times in Instruction No. 9, three times in Instruction No. 11 and mentioned for the seventh time in Instruction No. 14.
After the focus and stress placed on the key phrase, “to a degree which rendered him incapable of safely driving,” it is inconceivable that the jury was misled into con*1176sidering a lesser degree of intoxication than the statute required.
This court examines instructions in their entirety when it is called upon to decide whether instructions are erroneous. They must be considered as a whole and not according to isolated phrases and paragraphs.
Scheikofsky v. State, 636 P.2d 1107, 1111 (Wyo.1981) (citation omitted).
Instruction No. 13 does no more than attempt to explain or define the term “under the influence.” It does not dilute or change in any way the definition of degree of intoxication required to be proved, that is, “to a degree which rendered him [appellant] incapable of safely driving a motor vehicle.” This unfortunate instruction does no more than “gild the lily.”
I would affirm the conviction.