Court Opinion

ID: 9794204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:01:13.721182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:11:27.090267
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent for two reasons. First, this majority removes from the Wyoming Confrontation Clause1 our right to cross-examine an accuser2 and does so without examining the Reserved Rights Clause.3 This majority adopts for Wyoming the meaning assigned to the federal Confrontation Clause by Bourjaily v. United States4 in order to remove a previous state constitutional right to cross-examine our accusers.5 *524I would preserve our right to confront an accuser and would hold the court is directed by our state constitution to consult the Reserved Rights Clause before decreasing the protective terrain surrounding Wyoming’s Confrontation Clause. Second, after removing our right to cross-examine an accuser, this majority then insists on reaffirming the “inference standard”6 rather than adopting the federal preponderance of the evidence standard7 to decide when it is correct to admit against an accused citizen the testimony of an accuser who cannot be cross-examined. I would adopt for Wyoming the federal standard.
Luis A. Jandro is not the only person in Wyoming who lost the right to cross-examine his accusers when his conviction was affirmed. All of us have lost that right today. We are capable of better jurisprudence.8 I dissent.
The chief controversy with which I am concerned questions the constitutionality of reducing the bulwark of an enumerated state right9 without examining the relation between that reduction and the Reserved Rights Clause. I would argue here the Reserved Rights Clause shifts the burden of proof to the government to establish the new enumeration of the Wyoming Confrontation Clause, accomplished by reassigning to it a new and smaller scope, does not deny, impair, or disparage any right reserved to the people of Wyoming. The mistake made by the majority is in assuming that if the right to cross-examine an accuser in open court is located in our Confrontation Clause, then that right is extinguished when it is removed from the Confrontation Clause by adopting for Wyoming the federal Confrontation Clause which openly extinguishes that right under Bourjaily, 483 U.S. 171, 107 S.Ct. 2775. That assumption is false unless the propositions of law (rights) involved do not exhaust the logical space (amendments) they occupy.10 Since there are other possibilities, I would argue the right to cross-examine an accuser in open court can also be located in the Reserved Rights Clause of the Wyoming Constitution.11
In this case, the majority adopts for Wyoming the new meaning assigned to the federal Confrontation Clause and supposes in the process to have annihilated the right to cross-examine an accuser by deleting it from the state’s constitutional Confrontation Clause. This is done under the assumption that no right to confrontation can be located simultaneously within other open-textured provisions such as Due Process, Equal Protection, or Reserved Rights Clauses. The result in this case affirms Jandro’s conviction for conspiracy to deliver methamphetamine in violation of W.S. 35 — 7—1031(a)(ii) and 35-7-1042 by a procedure denying his counsel the opportunity to cross-examine the “confidential informant” whose words were put into the mouth of Detective Stuhlmiller for court presentation against the accused. Permitting that testimony stands in stark contrast to our previous holdings that the Wyoming Confrontation Clause requires the prosecutor demonstrate the “unavailability” of a wit*525ness and there be an “indicia of reliability” 12 prior to its current use as testimony.13
This court has jurisprudential responsibilities to the people of Wyoming which foreclose “selecting Supreme Court precedent on an ad hoc basis with the negative result-oriented appearance that accompanies such an approach.” Keiter, An Essay on Wyoming Constitutional Interpretation, XXI Land & Water L.Rev. 527, 549 (1986). We should develop and incorporate “a principled basis for evaluating and incorporating Supreme Court precedent into state constitutional jurisprudence” if we feel incapable of developing our own interpretive model for understanding the Wyoming Constitution. Id. at 549.
First, this court adopts the basic liberty-right denial thesis and then goes on to reject the Bourjaily14 preponderance of the evidence standard for admitting alleged conspiracy statements against the federally accused under F.R.E. 801(d)(2)(E). Consequently, this court reaffirms the most base evidentiary standard15 possible, which serves to strengthen the power of the prosecutor by concurrent destruction of a constitutional protection to any accused. After first rejecting the federal preponderance of the evidence standard, the majority then adopts for Wyoming the newest construction of the federal Confrontation Clause. This newest adaptation of confrontation and cross-examination diminishes severely the ability of the Wyoming judiciary to position itself between the power of the prosecutor and the constitutional protection of the accused citizen. We pick the worst of two worlds and fuse them into Wyoming law. We choose neither reliabili*526ty nor necessity as the touchstone.16 Likewise, we serve not to preserve “the basic purpose of the [confrontation] clause, assuring the accused the right to confront and cross-examine his accusers in the presence of the fact finder which must determine his guilt or innocence.” 17
The Bourjaily preponderance requirement established at least some definable decisions by the trial court for admission of any statement allegedly made to further the course of a conspiracy between the accused and an alleged co-conspirator before that statement becomes part of the evidentiary menu served up to the jury.18 The Bourjaily court rested that standard on concerns voiced when Congress “enacted the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975.”19 While that standard does not bind the Wyoming courts, we should not forget entirely the admission of a conspiracy statement alleged by the prosecutor does not allow an “accused to confront the witness”20 if the accuser cannot be cross-examined. The fundamental right to confront and cross-examine the witness should be beyond question.21
The common argument advanced to circumvent the right to confront an accuser during a charge of conspiracy becomes a legal fiction busy chasing its own tail. Because Confrontation Clause concerns once forbade the general use of hearsay by a prosecutor against an accused,22 we declared not to be hearsay23 the alleged conspiracy statement when the declarant is unavailable. If we did not declare the alleged conspiracy statement is not hearsay, that statement could be mistaken for hearsay because it meets the definition of hearsay.24 But since we declared it not hearsay, the Confrontation Clause need not be consulted.25
Having rejected the only Bourjaily safeguard for the accused citizen, the majority then imports wholesale the current construction and interpretation assigned the Confrontation Clause by the United States Supreme Court26 and requires that meaning be understood as ■ intended27 by the Wyoming Confrontation Clause. That requirement does not bridge the questions which surround it and requires a leap of faith I will not attempt across the abyss which now separates the old interpretation assigned our state Confrontation Clause from our newly adopted Bourjaily interpretation.28
*527I accept for now the established legal fiction that admits into the presence of the jury an alleged conspiratorial statement made by an unavailable declarant.29 I do so only to preserve the stability of stare decisis.30 But I do not accept any more erosion of our public right to confront our accusers openly in court. When a constitutional provision is newly construed to impair the previous scope of an enumerated right, as is done when the Bourjaily construction of the Confrontation Clause becomes our own, we should not neglect the Reserved Rights Clause located in Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 36.31 What if we discover that enumerated rights are indeed located within a field of unenumerated rights? What do we then do as jurists if we are in pursuit of our own interpretive model to understand best the Wyoming Constitution? 32
Perhaps we could put away quietly our sword of advocacy for the prosecution33 and devote fidelity to the Wyoming Constitution which, of course, includes the Reserved Rights Clause.34 While such an “inclusive” 35 provision can “never be complete,” 36 perhaps we can make of Wyoming law the best it can be by including in our state’s jurisprudence all provisions of the Wyoming constitution and by continuing the reasonable process and providing substantive protection.37
I would hold the Wyoming Confrontation Clause continues to contain the right to cross-examine the accuser and that this court is directed by our state constitution to consult the Reserved Rights Clause before we decrease the legal landscape which surrounds Wyoming’s Confrontation Clause. Also to be noted are that inferences, as a sufficiency level for decision making, come clothed with all kinds of factual characteristics. We should beware of an *528innocuous adaptation of the thinking climate that the world is flat as an inference from our inability to visually observe the curvature. I would adopt for Wyoming the federal and otherwise generally accepted preponderance of the evidence requirement to decide when it is correct to admit against an accused citizen the testimony of an accuser who cannot be cross-examined, rather than the inference determination methodology articulated by this majority.
I regretfully and respectfully dissent in observing this accusatorial process where constitutional rights are denied to the charged defendant, but more expressively from this creation of a standard for future cases where the difference between guilt and innocence may be less distinctly drawn.

. Right of accused to defend.
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to defend in person and ■ by counsel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation, to have a copy thereof, to be confronted with the witnesses against him,
Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 10 (emphasis added).

. Reaffirmed in Grable v. State, 649 P.2d 663, 673 (Wyo.1982).

. Rights not enumerated reserved to people.
The enumeration in this constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny, impair, or disparage others retained by the people.
Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 36.

. 483 U.S. 171, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987).

. “Today, we conclude that the second inquiry, independent indicia of reliability, is abo not mandated by the Constitution.” Bourjaily, 483 U.S. at 182, 107 S.Ct. at 2783, 97 L.Ed.2d at 157 (emphasis added). See n. 28 and then n. 12, infra.

. See n. 15, infra.

. F.R.E. 801(d)(2)(E).

. If the majority were to argue there has been no change to Wyoming’s Confrontation Clause, then the decision below could be affirmed on the basis of Grable, 649 P.2d at 672-73 and that would foreclose the need to adopt for Wyoming the construction assigned the Confrontation Clause under Bourjaily, 483 U.S. 171, 107 S.Ct. 2775. Cf. Bigelow v. State, 768 P.2d 558 (Wyo. 1989). See abo Burke v. State, 746 P.2d 852 (Wyo.1987) (Urbigkit, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

. See n. 1, supra.

. See Dworkin, No Right Answer?, 53 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 1 (1978).

. I would also argue the Reserved Rights Clause shifts the burden to the government to demonstrate that that possibility is foreclosed. It would be extraordinary to require Wyoming constitutional “history to confirm the plain meaning" of the Reserved Rights Clause. Bour-jaily, 483 U.S. at 178, 107 S.Ct. at 2780, 97 L.Ed.2d at 154 (emphasis in original). Requiring an accused citizen to prove the state constitution mandates an "indicia of reliability” is to deny or disparage the proposition. For if it is accepted, there is no need for proof.

. “The indicia of reliability is satisfied when the prior testimony was under oath, when defendant was represented by counsel, when the counsel could and did cross-examine the witness, and when the cross-examination which would be conducted at the trial would not touch upon any new and significantly material line of inquiry.” Martinez v. State, 611 P.2d 831, 837 (Wyo.1980) (emphasis added).

. Rodriguez v. State, 711 P.2d 410, 415 (Wyo. 1985); Grable, 649 P.2d 663.

. 483 U.S. at 176, 107 S.Ct. at 2779, 97 L.Ed.2d at 152.

. The majority states "[t]he proper exercise of discretion is demonstrated if the record encompasses sufficient evidence to permit the trial court to infer the existence of a conspiracy and the identity of its members.” (Emphasis added.) Sometimes we label this “prima facie evidence.” In Dorador v. State, 711 P.2d 417, 418— 19 (Wyo. 1985), we explained "prima facia in this context” can only be defined in terms which permit a reasonable inference that a conspiracy existed.
But the "inference" characterization restated by the majority advances no claim for quality of proof and thus does no work. An inference is a thought process for determination and not a standard of evidence for decision. The reasonableness of the inference addresses the logic of the decision and the stability of establishment of the underlying facts. "Inferences are deductions or conclusions which with reason and common sense lead the jury to draw from facts which have been established by the evidence in the case.” Black’s Law Dictionary 700 (5th ed. 1979). As this court in Matter of Estate of Roosa, 753 P.2d 1028, 1034 (Wyo.1988) quoted:
"Guess-work cannot be substituted for evidence or inference, for 'an inference is the conclusion drawn on reason from premises established by proof. In a sense it is the thing proved. Guess-work is not.’ Whitehouse v. Bolster, 95 Me. 458, 50 A. 240 [1901].” Wright v. Conway, 34 Wyo. 1, 241 P. 369, reh. denied, 34 Wyo. 42, 51, 242 P. 1107, 1110 (1926). ******
"An inference is a deduction of fact that may logically and reasonably be drawn from another fact or group of facts found or otherwise established in the action.” Cal.Evidence Code § 600(b) (West 1966).
Of course, .the trial court must determine a conspiracy may have existed. The question begged by the majority and asked by Jandro is what is an acceptable "quantum of proof on which such determinations must be based,” Bourjaily, 483 U.S. at 173, 107 S.Ct. at 2778, 97 L.Ed.2d at 151, in order to build a reasonably valid inference?
The validity of inference decision making is controlled by the adequacy and accuracy of the underlying facts, Kobielusz v. Wilson, 701 P.2d 559 (Wyo.1985), and the logical relationship of those facts to the derived conclusion. For example, it is cloudy — ergo, it may rain; it is cloudy — it will rain; it is cloudy — it did rain. The second is an invalid inference and the last is no inference at all since it only constitutes a statement of historical fact. The prohibition against an inference built upon an inference, 1A Wigmore, Evidence § 41 (Tillers rev. 1983), recognizes as invalid an escalation of stacked possibilities to reach a less likely probability. Matter of Estate of Roosa, 753 P.2d 1028.

. Halpern, The Confrontation Clause and the Search for Truth in Criminal Trials, 37 Buffalo L.Rev. 165, 200 (1988-89).

. Seidelson, The Confrontation Clause, the Right Against Self-Incrimination in the Supreme Court: A Critique and Some Modest Proposals, 20 Duq.L.Rev. 429, 461 (1982).

. Bourjaily, 483 U.S. at 176 n. 1 and 186 n. 1, 107 S.Ct. at 2779 n. 1 and 2784 n. 1, 97 L.Ed.2d at 153 n. 1 and 159 n. 1.

. Bourjaily, 483 U.S. at 177, 107 S.Ct. at 2780, 97 L.Ed.2d at 154.

. Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 10.

. California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970); Pointer v. State of Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965); People v. Anderson, 43 Cal.3d 1104, 240 Cal.Rptr. 585, 742 P.2d 1306 (1987).

. Jonakait, Restoring the Confrontation Clause to the Sixth Amendment, 35 UCLA L.Rev. 557 (1988); Note, Richardson v. Marsh: Codefend-ant Confessions and the Demise of Confrontation, 101 Harv.L.Rev. 1876 (1988). See also Note, Bourjaily v. United States: A New Rule for Admitting Coconspirator Hearsay Statements Under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E), 1988 Wis.L.Rev. 577 (1988) and Sixth Amendment— The Co-Conspirator Exemption to the Hearsay Rule: .The Confrontation Clause and Preliminary Factual Determinations Relevant to Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E), 78 J.Crim.L. & Criminology 915 (1988).

. W.R.E. 801(d).

. Hearsay is defined in W.R.E. 801(c) as a “statement, other than one made by the declar-ant while testifying at the trail or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.”

. Quod erat demonstrandum?

. See n. 28, infra.

. "[C]reative interpretation takes its formal structure from the idea of intention, not (at least not necessarily) because it aims to discover the purposes of any particular historical person or group but because it aims to impose purpose over the text or data or tradition being interpreted." R. Dworkin, Law's Empire, at 228 (1986).

.While a literal interpretation of the Confrontation Clause could bar the use of any out-of-court statements when the declarant is unavailable, this Court has rejected that view as "unintended and too extreme." * * * Rather, we have attempted to harmonize the goal of the Clause — placing limits on the kind of evidence that may be received against a defendant — with a societal interest in accurate fact-finding, which may require consideration of out-of-court statements. To accommodate these competing interests, the Court has, as a general matter only, required the prosecution to demonstrate both the unavailability of the declarant and the "indicia of reliability" surrounding the out-of-court declaration. * * ■* Last Term * * *, we held that the first of these two generalized inquiries, unavailability, was not required when the hearsay statement is the out-of-court declaration of a co-conspirator. Today, we conclude that the second inquiry, independent indicia of reliability, is also not mandated by the Constitution.
Bourjaily, 483 U.S. at 182, 107 S.Ct. at 2783, 97 L.Ed.2d at 157 (emphasis added). See Seidel-son, The Confrontation Clause and the Supreme Court: Some Good News and Some Bad News, 17 Hofstra L.Rev. 51 (1988). See also Note, Barker v. Morris and the Right? to Confrontation, 14 Hastings Const. L.Q. 839 (1987).
Under what jurisdiction does the Rehnquist court privately amend the "goal of the Clause?” This is what the majority transforms into future Wyoming law? For historical perspective, see Goldman, Not So "Firmly Rooted”: Exceptions to the Confrontation Clause, 66 N.C.L.Rev. 1' (1987).

. W.R.E. 801(d)(2)(E).

. Bigelow, 768 P.2d 558; Burke, 746 P.2d 852; Rodriguez, 711 P.2d at 415.

. See n. 3, supra.

. See R. Dworkin, Law’s Empire, supra, at 227-28.

. “ 'Courts have been sympathetic to this problem [of the prosecutor], * * " Bigelow, 768 P.2d at 562 (quoting Burke, 746 P.2d at 855). " 'Courts have been sympathetic to this problem [of the prosecutor], * * " Burke, 746 P.2d at 855 (quoting W. LaFave and A. Scott, Criminal Law at 460-61 (1972).

. "Anyone who professes to take rights seriously, and who praises our Government for respecting them, must have some sense of what that point is.” R. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, at 198 (1978).

. See Gezzi v. State, 780 P.2d 972 (Wyo. 1989).

. Barnett, Reconceiving the Ninth Amendment, 74 Cornell L.Rev. 1, 42 (1988). See also Symposium, Interpreting The Ninth Amendment, 64 Chi.-Kent L.Rev. 37 (1988).

. Burke, 746 P.2d 852 (Urbigkit, L, concurring in part and dissenting in part); United States v. Petersen, 611 F.2d 1313 (10th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 905, 100 S.Ct. 2985, 64 L.Ed.2d 854 (1980).