Court Opinion

ID: 9552357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:09:23.100657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:12.244135
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Justice,
specially concurring.
I agree that Barnes’ conviction must be affirmed. I also am in full accord with the majority opinion concerning the identification testimony and the propriety of charging by information.
I would treat differently with the claim of prosecutorial error. Appellant did not object to the prosecutor’s comments at the time they were made. He therefore seeks to induce this court to review the matter of prosecutorial misconduct under the plain-error doctrine. The conclusion of the majority of the court is that the argument of the prosecuting attorney was not damaging to the fairness of the appellant’s trial. In his concurring opinion, Chief Justice Rose concludes that the comments made by the prosecutor did not rise to the level of plain reversible error. This claim of error, therefore, should not be considered.
It is my position that if plain error is not present, then proper judicial restraint demands that we not examine the claim of error as to its substance. I therefore do not agree with either the majority opinion or the concurring opinion of Chief Justice Rose insofar as there is encompassed a discussion of the propriety of the prosecutor’s comments. If the claim of error is not reviewable under the plain-error doctrine, and I agree that it is not, then we should ignore that claim of error and not treat with its substance in our disposition. Brown v. State, Wyo., 581 P.2d 189 (1978).