Court Opinion

ID: 9797686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:27:15.633524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:57:45.884188
License: Public Domain

GOLDEN, Justice,
dissenting, with whom MACY, J., joins.
I must dissent from the majority's decision that Wyoming has jurisdiction over criminal conspiracies entered into in another state because the conspirators planned to possess and deliver drugs in this state. When a conspiracy does not require an overt act to constitute the offense, the law is well-settled that conspirators commit their offense by the agreement to commit a crime and the state where the agreement is reached has jurisdic*719tion over the offense. Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347, 362, 32 S.Ct. 793, 800, 56 L.Ed. 1114 (1912). Hyde then decided that overt acts within a jurisdiction allowed prosecution of all conspirators although none of the conspirators had entered the jurisdiction because, by their constructive presence, the crime had an effect in that jurisdiction. Id. at 362-363, 32 S.Ct. at 800.
Recognizing that Wyoming's jurisdiction is territorial and does not reach a crime committed outside our borders, Rios v. State, 733 P.2d 242 (Wyo.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 833, 108 S.Ct. 108, 98 L.Ed.2d 68 (1987), relied upon Hyde's constructive presence theory to decide that Riosg' criminal failure to return his child to the custodial parent was a crime committed in this state. Id. at 249-50. In Rios, we decided that Wyoming had jurisdiction over the crime committed even though the defendant was absent from the state at the time that the crime was committed. Id. at 250. Rios exhaustively examined the various bases for territorial jurisdiction including our decision in Hopkinson v. State, 632 P.2d 79 (Wyo.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 922, 102 S.Ct. 1280, 71 LEd.2d 463 (1982), but did not, by any means, set the stage for the extension of extraterritorial jurisdiction for conspiracy when the agreement was entered into in another state. Rios, 738 P.2d at 245-50.
Unlike Rios where a crime was committed in this state by the accused's constructive presence, and unlike drug conspiracies on the high seas where the United States as sovereign has statutorily chosen to extend extraterritorial jurisdiction, Marquez did not commit criminal conduct in Wyoming under any legislative enactment. The crime was committed in New Mexico and Marquez' constitutionally protected venue rights are implicated. See United States v. Cabrales, 524 U.S. 1, 6, 118 S.Ct. 1772, 1775, 141 L.Ed.2d 1 (1998); see also, Rios, 733 P.2d at 244-45. Additionally, Wyoming's rules of criminal procedure require that the prosecution shall take place in the county in which the offense was committed. W.R.Cr.P. 18. Marquez was convicted of three counts of conspiracy for agreements to possess and deliver drugs to Wyoming that he made in New Mexico. He committed no crime in Wyoming, and venue in Wyoming is not proper.
For the same reasons, Moreno's participation in the conspiracy while in Wyoming cannot justify jurisdiction over Marquez for the conspiracy. The agreement is the crime, and the erime was completed in New Mexico. Had the authorities not stopped the object of the agreement, the possession and delivery of drugs in this state, then Wyoming certainly would have had jurisdiction over both the conspiracy and the crime. That is not the case here, and it simply goes too far to find that Marquez committed a crime in Wyoming.