Court Opinion

ID: 9575409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:13:34.446402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:10.433727
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice, Retired,
concurring in the decision to remand.
I concur in the decision of the majority to remand for a realistic hearing, which has not heretofore been provided, to determine whether the forfeiture of the accused’s right to transactional immunity has occurred by his conduct. I also agree that a pretrial Denno hearing should be conducted since, otherwise, the admission of immunity evidence at trial would almost certainly taint the jury decision with irrelevant evidence. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964). See also Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972).
Differing, however, from the comments made in special concurrence and dissent by Justice Cardine, it does not appear to me that the majority intends that an adverse decision in a Denno hearing would leave the State a right to take the immunity issue into the substantive guilt evidence later elicited at trial.
Differing from the majority, I have two particular objections to the decision in this case which may be directly related to the peculiar status of this present proceeding involving events which occurred about fourteen years ago.
First, to provide due process, Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 6; U.S. Const. amend. XIV, I would require that another trial judge be assigned for any further proceedings in this case. The present sitting judge for the case — assigned—will not provide the defendant any semblance of justice required from a disinterested judicial decision maker. Fanning v. Fanning, 717 P.2d 346 (Wyo.1986). The present trial judge has already made up his mind as the factual decisions in his opinion letters reflect. His attitude regarding the Hopkinson v. State, 632 P.2d 79 (Wyo.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 922, 102 S.Ct. 1280, 71 L.Ed.2d 463 (1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 908, 104 S.Ct. 262, 78 L.Ed.2d 246 (1983) cases was not only reflected in the hearing which was held, but also in his conduct of the parallel trial, Russell v. State, 851 P.2d 1274 (Wyo.1993), which conviction is also subject to reversal. See Jones v. State, 777 P.2d 54 (Wyo.1989), followed by Jones v. State, 813 P.2d 629 (Wyo.1991) and Jones v. State, 833 P.2d 540 (Wyo.1992). The Jones case was finally resolved when the same sitting judge was removed and the case was finally determined by another trial judge, present Wyoming Supreme Court Justice William A. Taylor.
Second, I have not, in any regard, changed my mind about the result-oriented second trial decisions in Phillips v. State, 835 P.2d 1062 (Wyo.1992), Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting, and Harvey v. State, 835 P.2d 1074 (Wyo.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 661, 121 L.Ed.2d 586 (1992), Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting, in an attempt to differentiate charges of aiding and abetting from conspiracy to commit. What happens in this case is that transactional immunity, generally considered to provide wider protection, has been reconstructed so that it may well provide less protection than will use or derivative use immunity. That result is contrary to well established principles of law. Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 453, 92 S.Ct. at 1661; State v. Gonzalez, 825 P.2d 920, 925 (Alaska App.1992).
This most unusual decision is achieved by defining the transactional immunity within the double jeopardy developments of current law which pled out severable crimes within the transactional events. See Harvey, 835 P.2d 1074; Phillips, 835 P.2d 1062; and Duffy v. State, 730 P.2d 754 (Wyo.1986). This decision will provide a unique perspective to American law if the enforced testimony, secured with a promise of immunity for the present accused, leaves him unprotected with a grant of transactional immunity even though he would have been safeguarded if he had been granted the “lesser” protection of use immunity.
The distinction between the two types of immunity is constitutionally significant. Kastigar, 406 U.S. 441, 92 S.Ct. 1653, Gonzalez, 825 P.2d 920; 2 Paul H. Robinson, Criminal Law Defenses § 205(b) and (c) (1984). A number of states, because of the broader protection assumed to be provided, *1271have held that transactional immunity is required under their state constitutions. State v. Miyasaki, 62 Haw. 269, 614 P.2d 915 (1980); Attorney General v. Colleton, 387 Mass. 790, 444 N.E.2d 915 (1982); Wright v. McAdory, 536 So.2d 897 (Miss.1988); State v. Soriano, 68 Or.App. 642, 684 P.2d 1220, aff'd 298 Or. 392, 693 P.2d 26 (1984).
I would remand for a proper hearing before an impartial jurist to determine if forfeiture of the granted transactional immunity did occur.