Court Opinion

ID: 9796040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:46:37.338746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:44:45.374980
License: Public Domain

VOIGT, Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
[132] I concur in that part of the majority opinion that affirms the appellant's various convictions, and I agree that the aggravated assault and battery conviction should be reversed, but I would do the latter on the basis of insufficiency of the evidence, as opposed to doing so as a matter of law. I dissent from the portions of the (1) that conclude that the legislature manifested an intent to declare that "attempt to threaten with a drawn deadly weapon" is not a crime, and (2) that conclude that the legislature manifested an intent that the general attempt statute not apply to any of the subdivisions of the aggravated assault and battery statute.
[183] Given the existence of the general attempt statute-Wyo. Stat. Aun. § 6-1-8301 (LexisNexis 2007)-the words "attempts to cause" in Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-2-502(a)(i) (LexisNexis 2007) are superfluous.1 I cannot read into that superfluity an intent that attempting to cause serious bodily injury under cireumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life is not a crime, or an intent that attempting to cause bodily injury to a pregnant woman is not a crime. Furthermore, we need not and should not answer those questions in the context of this case, which involves only Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-2-502(a)@ii)(Lexis Nexis 2007).
[134] Finally, I do not believe that this is one of those cases that involves the "attempt to attempt" conundrum. To threaten with a drawn deadly weapon is not an attempt crime. Moreover, it is not impossible to attempt to threaten someone with a drawn *1254deadly weapon. Had the appellant, in the instant case, succeeded in fully drawing his handgun, and begun the process of turning toward the officers with it drawn, and later admitted that he intended to yell something akin to "get back, or I'll shoot," but then tripped and fallen over a sagebrush, dropping the weapon in the process, it might be said that he attempted, but failed, to threaten the officers with a drawn deadly weapon.
[135] Nevertheless, I agree that the conviction for attempted threatening with a drawn deadly weapon should be reversed in this case because the most that the evidence showed was that the appellant possessed a weapon while he ran from the police.

. See Theodore E. Lauer, Goodbye 3-Card Monte: The Wyoming Criminal Code of 1982, 19, No. 1, Land & Water L. Rev. 107, 132 (1984).