Court Opinion

ID: 9786032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:45:40.788748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:40.923340
License: Public Domain

HILL, Justice,
specially concurring.
[T 34] I write separately so as to attempt to further limn my view of this Court's search and seizure jurisprudence. I will not attempt to do a comprehensive review of the many cases that have been issued by this Court over the last half decade. My intention here is simply to distinguish this case, as I see it, from Pierce v. State, 2007 WY 182, ¶ 37, 171 P.3d 525, 539 (Wyo.2007) and Sam v. State, 2008 WY 25, 177 P.3d 1173 (Wyo.2008) as I analyzed those matters.
[435] In all such cases, the goal of our review is to determine whether or not the search and seizure was "reasonable" under the facts and cireumstances presented by any given case. In this process, it is my convietion that we must also keep well in mind that this Court is not a fact finding court. In reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, we do not interfere with the trial court's findings of fact unless the findings are clearly erroneous. We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's determination because the trial court has an opportunity at the evidentiary hearing to assess the credibility of the witnesses, weigh the evidence, and make the necessary inferences, deductions, and conclusions. Only then does the constitutionality of a particular search or seizure become a question of law that we review de novo. When I applied that analysis in Pierce and Sam, I concluded that the searches at issue were reasonable as contemplated by the Wyoming Constitution. When I apply that standard to the facts of this case, my conclusion is that the stop, search and seizure at issue herein was one prompted more by suspicions or hunches than by concrete fact. Hence, as a matter of law, I conclude that the search and seizure was not reasonable and is, therefore, unconstitutional.