Court Opinion

ID: 9549838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:25:27.187876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:58.024065
License: Public Domain

GOLDEN, Justice,
with whom THOMAS, J., joins.
I envision your attention would be captured if the headline on tomorrow’s newspaper screamed, “Children Devour Parent.” That headline may become a reality because of the majority’s decisions in this case and its companion case of Phillips v. State, 774 P.2d 118 (Wyo.1989). These two decisions are the delinquent children of the parent case of Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972). With the majority’s help these two children have just devoured their parent. In the same gruesome meal, they have also devoured the doctrine of stare decisis. Here is how this cannibalistic parricidium happened.
In the parent case of Barker the United States Supreme Court established a four-part balancing test for appellate review of alleged speedy trial violations. In applying that test to Willie Barker’s factual situation, the primary facts of consequence of which were nearly five years’ delay from criminal complaint to trial and several pro forma assertions of his speedy trial right *117and nearly ten months of pretrial incarceration, the nation’s highest court found that Willie Barker’s speedy trial right had not been violated. Barker’s conviction of murder and his resulting life sentence were not reversed, and he was not freed.
Mr. Harvey and Mr. Phillips, acting together, committed their kidnapping sexual assault in Wyoming. They were convicted by a jury of their peers after what they essentially admit was a fair trial. They, like Willie Barker, claimed their speedy trial rights were violated. They, unlike Willie Barker, are now free.
In applying to Mr. Harvey’s and Mr. Phillips’ facts of consequence the same balancing test used to analyze Willie Barker’s predicament, the majority has achieved what can only be described as an inspired application of the doctrine of stare decisis. This latín term means that like cases should be decided alike. Of course, Mr. Harvey’s and Mr. Phillips’ facts of consequence were not quite the same as Willie Barker’s. Willie Barker’s trial was delayed nearly five years, Mr. Harvey’s and Mr. Phillips’ only eighteen months. Willie Barker suffered nearly ten months’ pretrial incarceration; Mr. Harvey and Mr. Phillips suffered none. Willie Barker made several pro forma pretrial speedy trial assertions, as did Mr. Harvey; Mr. Phillips made none. Mr. Barker’s conviction was affirmed and he is now serving his life sentence. Mr. Harvey’s and Mr. Phillips’ convictions were reversed and they are now roaming the streets of Wyoming as free men. Since Willie Barker’s facts of consequence to the balancing test, by any objective measurement, were conspicuously worse than Mr. Harvey’s and Mr. Phillips’, you would naturally think these cases would be decided alike. But the majority of this court in Mr. Harvey’s and Mr. Phillips’ cases invokes a judicial presumption, or fiction, to hold otherwise.
Mindful of the differences between the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Barker and this majority’s holdings in Harvey and Phillips, one can only logically conclude the majority’s inspired, yet creative, application of the Willie Barker balancing test dictates an absurd result: were the majority deciding a Willie Barker-like case today, the majority would reverse Willie Barker’s conviction on speedy trial grounds. Thus, the very case which gave birth to the balancing test would be destroyed by that same test. The newspaper headline could then scream, “Twin Brother Devours Parent.”
Although not an identical twin to its companion case of Phillips v. State, this case is virtually the same as that one. Whatever factual difference exists between the two is, for all practical intents and purposes, legally meaningless. To be precise, the only factual difference is this: Unlike Phillips’ lawyer who did not assert his client’s speedy trial right until nineteen days before trial, Mr. Harvey’s lawyer made two pro forma assertions earlier in the litigation. Placing these assertions in proper perspective, the record shows he did not assert the right during the one-year period from the date on which the criminal complaint was filed, January 9, 1986, until January 16, 1987. On the latter date, he filed a motion to dismiss on speedy trial grounds, but chose not to request a hearing on that motion. After sixty days, that motion is deemed denied. Rule 301, Uniform Rules for the District Courts of the State of Wyoming. On February 14, 1987, Mr. Harvey joined with the prosecution in requesting a presentence investigation. On April 24, 1987, he filed a second speedy trial motion to dismiss, but again chose not to request a hearing. After sixty days, that motion is deemed denied. Rule 301, Uniform Rules for the District Courts of the State of Wyoming. Finally, on the day before trial, he joined with Mr. Phillips’ brief in support of the latter’s pro forma motion to dismiss on speedy trial grounds. In my view, based upon my reading of Barker, Mr. Harvey’s speedy trial assertions are pure pro forma. Mr. Harvey and Mr. Phillips are two peas from the same pod.
Perhaps most disturbing is that the analysis and result in this case, and in its companion case Phillips, indicate to me that the majority is trying to use these opinions to send a message to the district judge who presided over the trial. They apparently want that district judge and his *118colleagues on the district court bench in Wyoming, to know that a slim majority of this court is willing to arbitrarily invoke its supervisory powers to free a pair of men who admit they were fairly convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault, and turn them loose on the people of Wyoming as a kind of “appellate penalty” for the delays in these prosecutions. What the majority is really saying here is that its ends justify the extreme and unwarranted means with which it has chosen to castigate the district court. That type of action is not proper under the applicable law of Barker in these cases, and is not generally befitting of the highest court of the State of Wyoming.
I fear that the majority has suddenly lost sight of what is really before it in this case and in Phillips. There is no question that excessive pretrial delay is undesirable. None of the justices on this court condone excessive pretrial delay in any sense; it was never meant to be a part of our criminal justice system. The abstract merit of excessive pretrial delay, however, is not the issue in this appeal nor was it the issue in Phillips. Also not at issue in these appeals is the effect of the 120-day limit imposed by Uniform District Court Rule 204. In fact, according to Barker,1 this is probably an issue for the people of Wyoming speaking through their legislature. The only issue before us in these cases is whether we will give substantive analysis to the factors identified in Barker in the same way the United States Supreme Court did in that case. I am convinced the majority has failed to do that.
What I said in my dissent in the Phillips case applies equally well to Mr. Harvey. By this reference I incorporate the Phillips dissent here. If Willie Barker ever reads these majority decisions, he will sure wish he had lived in Wyoming.
I respectfully dissent.

. “We find no constitutional basis for holding that the speedy trial right can be quantified into a specified number of days or months. The states, of course, are free to prescribe a reasonable period consistent with constitutional standards, but our approach must be less precise.” Barker, 407 U.S. at 523, 92 S.Ct. at 2188, 33 L.Ed.2d at 113.