Court Opinion

ID: 9597290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:57:19.982161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:22.073687
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Chief Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur with the result in this case. I would not pursue the ad hoc approach of the Arkansas court, however. I would endeavor to provide at least a degree of certainty for practitioners in such cases.
In this case we conclude that testimony from the preliminary hearing was admissible at trial. That is the same problem the Arkansas court was solving in Scott v. State, 272 Ark. 88, 612 S.W.2d 110 (1981). I would not go to the extent of adopting an absolute per se rule for admissibility of the testimony at the preliminary examination. I would adopt a rule to the effect that testimony from the preliminary examination is admissible at trial assuming the conditions of Rule 804(b)(1), Wyoming Rules of Evidence, are met. The defendant would have an opportunity to show good cause to the court that the prior testimony should not be admitted because of a manifest injustice arising out of the circumstances. The greater certainty would be helpful to counsel who would know that if they perceive any advantage to the client at cross-examination, they should pursue it at the preliminary examination. They would understand that the prior testimony would be admissible at trial, and the burden would be upon the defendant to explain why it should not be admitted. In most cases the result would be no different from the result of the majority opinion in this case except that counsel would know that they could not forego cross-examination with the expectation of relying upon the lack of cross-examination to defeat the admissibility of the prior testimony at trial.
I have a second concern in this case which relates to our historic articulation of the standard by which we examine evidence in a criminal case in which the issue of sufficiency of the evidence is raised. In Broom v. State, Wyo., 695 P.2d 640, 642 (1985), we recognized the concept set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2788-2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), to the effect that the question is not whether we are persuaded of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt but whether a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. In my judgment we then overlook a subtle nuance in the language quoted from Jackson v. Virginia, supra. The Supreme Court of the United States went on to say at 443 U.S. 319, 99 S.Ct. 2789:
“ * * * Once a defendant has been found guilty of the crime charged, the factfinder’s role as weigher of the evidence is preserved through a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution. * * * ” (Emphasis in original.) .
Concededly, the Supreme Court of the United States was discussing the view taken of the evidence by a United States district court in a proceeding brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the provision for post-conviction review of state cases in the federal context. Historically, such reviews have not been numerous from the courts of the state of Wyoming. That may not hold true in the future, however, and for that reason it would be helpful to articulate our standard of review by stating that we review all the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. As a practical matter we would do exactly what we do now, but the federal court would not have to treat with an issue as to whether because of the different statement of the rule this court had in some way conducted *417a more limited examination of the evidence than that contemplated by Jackson v. Virginia, supra.