Court Opinion

ID: 9534883
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:43:20.834127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:06.779093
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
This court reverses the district court and affixes a significant expense of the operation of a state agency — the public defender — upon county government. This is done as a concept of implied intent to achieve uniformity. I agree with neither the concept of applied uniformity, nor the interpretation of the statute.
Fortunately, the expense presented here for which the county likely has no sufficiently budgeted amounts will not bring the operation of Laramie County government to a halt. The county will probably not even have to borrow money to fund the criminal trial proceeding as is apparently the case with Sheridan County’s death penalty case, if press reports are accurate.
Unsatisfied by the comprehensive and scholarly analysis provided in the majority opinion, I remain convinced that the district court was right in initial decision which assessed legislative intent to eliminate county responsibility to fund the public defender costs in counties where the state was already funding prosecutorial costs. This is the uniformity that I would observe as the developed plan of the legislature explicitly provided by the change in statute to delete the words “at county expense” from W.S. 7-ll-402(b). Nylen v. Dayton, 770 P.2d 1112, 1116 (Wyo.1989); Wetering v. Eisele, 682 P.2d 1055, 1061 (Wyo.1984); State ex rel. Albany County Weed and Pest Dist. v. Board of County Com’rs of Albany County, 592 P.2d 1154, 1157 (Wyo.1979); Brown v. State, 590 P.2d 1312, 1314 (Wyo.1979).
The power to enact laws for Wyoming state government is invested by the Constitution in its legislature. The legislature assumes fundamental responsibilities for three required activities: pass appropriation bills to maintain government, Wyo. Const, art. 3, § 34; provide for education, Wyo.Const, art. 1, § 23; Wyo.Const, art. 7, § 1; Wyo.Const, art. 21, § 28; and maintain order and societal responsibility to be provided by a properly funded and organized justice delivery system, Wyo. Const, art. 5, § 1; Wyo.Const, art. 10, § 2. See State v. Langley, 53 Wyo. 332, 84 P.2d 767 (1938) and State v. Sherman, 18 Wyo. 169, 105 P. 299 (1909).
Within two if not three of those basic responsibilities are found funding and structural responsibility for the prosecution of criminal conduct and the protection of the citizens of the state from those who would commit criminal acts. This responsibility for public welfare constitutes one of *1390the basic constituents of state government in a federal system. Within the prosecution and protection obligation and requirement is to be found preparation and trial time witness expenses. The criminal justice delivery system performs properly only when both prosecutors and defense counsel are provided adequate financial support to have the tools of advice and testimony to do a proper job. Only the legislature can provide those financial requirements. Wyo.Const. art. 3, § 35. It is an obligation that applies equally to prosecution and defense.1 Wyo.Const. art. 1, § 10; State v. Gallegos, 384 P.2d 967 (Wyo.1963). Cf. Hoem v. State, 756 P.2d 780 (Wyo.1988).
It is also fortunate that the issue of witness fees for public defender witnesses is being brought to the surface at this time. One way or another the legislature will immediately, by action or inaction, decide where these kinds of expenses for crime prosecution will be paid within government. The political realities do not end there since if the source should be the county, as this court’s majority now determines by interpretation of legislative intent, then only the legislature has the power to make sufficient basic allocations of public funding from which the county can pay. It is also my persuasion that the legislature recognized this obligation for at least two counties by changes in legislation.
The decision whether the responsibility is met directly by the state funding or indirectly through legislative provisions to provide adequate revende resources for county government is peculiarly the legislative choice. With our present decision, the problem has to now be faced in twenty-three counties, including the recognition that where prosecutorial expenses are provided by the state, an equivalency of resources for the public defender is also constitutionally required. Wyo.Const. art. 1, § 10. Equal protection and due process are not inane abstract concepts for academicians to discuss and society to reject. These provisions quantified in the Wyoming Constitution are the essence of our state government. Holm v. State, 404 P.2d 740 (Wyo.1965).
Whatever way is chosen by the legislature, adequate support is a constitutional imperative to meet its responsibility for public welfare, including crime prevention and punishment. Inaction hereafter instead of direct decision will serve that fundamental duty most inefficiently. The use of state agency budgeting to impose financial obligations on county government or city government without analysis and substantive decision on basic issues of government serves public welfare in crime prevention and punishment even less efficiently. Contrary to what this court’s majority apparently suggests, the appropriation process cannot be substituted in constitutional criteria and bill content limitations for substantive legislation. Wyo.Const. art. 3, § 24; Wyo.Const. art. 3, § 26.
I dissent in belief that no laws exist placing this expense as a financial burden on Laramie County. I write to stress a decisional requirement of the legislature, whether by action or inaction, which may determine that a fundamental responsibility of law enforcement should be charged to county government. Uneven prosecution mandated by overwhelmed financial burdens may be the inevitable result in some counties. The criminal justice system in well-funded Campbell County is far different in both capacity and function than compared to Niobrara County, and for that matter, Laramie County, with its low as*1391sessed valuation to population ratio.2
The short sad life and untimely death of Christopher Hobson followed by criminal conviction of his mother, Mindi Hobson Longfellow, emotionally and moralistically illustrates an excellence of prosecution, diligence and expertise in defense as a proper constituent of the delivery of justice. Longfellow v. State, 803 P.2d 848 (Wyo.1990) The continued high level of effectiveness of the criminal justice processes will require adequate funding, and one that I perceive to be, directly or indirectly, a responsibility of our entire state. However, the case of Longfellow is history. What will happen in other areas of the state or again in Laramie County during the next biennium and thereafter is the real question now presented by this appeal involving apportionment and allocation of responsibilities for the necessary support to provide an efficiently operating justice delivery system.
Whatever pathway the legislature may choose, action or inaction, the responsibility for adequate funding remains as one of that body’s fundamental responsibilities. I believe we now reverse one step the legislature has already taken, but inevitably the big decision will remain for action in the Capitol. One way or another, the critical budgeting decision will be to provide an effective justice delivery system and that obligation will remain. At present, by ignoring the change found in agency history and disregarding the deletion in statute we “amend the statutory scheme from the bench.”
Consequently, with improvidence in statutory interpretation exhibited and a judicially provided step backwards for adequacy of justice system funding then provided, I respectfully dissent.

. There is no secret why many complex prosecutions today are venued only in federal courts. The federal government is willing to provide money for investigation, staff, costs and expenses to do a quality prosecution that state governments, to a significant extent, cannot or do not provide. Federalism comes to mean the federal government where state government starves justice delivery system agencies’ non-competitiveness in a modern world of complex and expensive criminal trial characteristics.

. It is recognized that the cost funding problem for criminal proceedings has received recent legislative attention, but a firm decision by enacted statute has not been achieved.
I would agree with appellee in its excellent historical analysis of the origin and development of the office of public defender in statement:
Statutes must be construed with a sensitivity to the historical setting surrounding their enactment, the public policy of the state, and other prior and contemporaneous facts and circumstances. State ex rel. Motor Vehicle Division v. Holtz, 674 P.2d 732, 736 (Wyo.1983).
* if * * * *
* * * Statutes must be read in light of the discerned purposes of the legislative act of which they are a part and those acts relating to the same general subject. Mauler v. Titus, 697 P.2d 303, 307-08 (Wyo.1985).