Court Opinion

ID: 9549750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:24:29.036851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:53.310640
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
specially concurring.
My conception that constitutional rights are obligatory and not merely authored in wan hopefulness is adequately addressed in my special concurrence in Harvey v. State, in P.2d 87 (Wyo.1989).
But it must be reiterated in response to the dissents in their efforts to affirm this conviction that at least I will expect that the uniform rules for the district courts that are stated to be mandatory are mandatory and not only for litigants and attorneys, but also for the judicial system, including judges. This unbending determination will continue for me until either the *126Wyoming Judicial Conference rescinds or this court revokes the delegation made in W.R.Cr.P. 52, as initially adopted November 21,1968. “Shall” will continue to mean “shall” and not be redefined to anticipate “perhaps.” In Mayland v. State, 568 P.2d 897, 899 (Wyo.1977), this court, in considering in one of its rules what the word “shall” means, stated:
The court is then faced with the simple question of whether the requirements of this rule are mandatory.
It is hard to conceive a more direct commandment than rests in this rule. This is clear and obvious. This court in a much earlier day observed that when the word “shall” was employed, it was usually legally accepted as mandatory, Mau v. Stoner, 14 Wyo. 183, 83 P. 218, 219. * * * Orderly judicial administration is dependent upon procedural rules, and in order to assure uniform and timely disposition of appeals they must be enforced and not relaxed or changed at the whim of any court. * * * Reasonable adherence to the rules of the court is necessary to the proper administration of justice, * * *.
I recognize not only in the enforcement of the appellate process but also in the application of the constitutional right to a speedy trial, that the word “shall” means just what it says. The moralistic and philosophical conceptualization that pervades the subject of why courts should obey the law does not apply here. Smith, Why Should Courts Obey the Law?, 77 Geo.L.J. 113 (1988). The dissents would have this court ignore the rule established by the judiciary as our rule and not the intangible product of another body of government. Both are wrong, but this is even more so.
In any event, I do not justify that any segment of the judiciary by rule or result has the opportunity or authority to rescind, revoke or extinguish our 600-year history of English law, the Wyoming Constitution or the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.1

. Additional significant appellate issues were presented in appellate brief but one not documented or presented, although reaching a fundamental concern, is the trial court’s pre-trial concluded attitude of guilt as announced in a letter to counsel dated December 26, 1986 or about seven months prior to trial. See Harvey, 774 P.2d at 107, n. 8 and at 108 n. 9 (Urbigkit, J., specially concurring) and Smallwood v. State, 771 P.2d 798 (Wyo.1989) (Urbigkit, J., dissenting).