Court Opinion

ID: 9603171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:03:51.898999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:09.125868
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent to the dismissal of this appeal. While I have no disagreement with any of the rules of law set forth in the majority’s opinion, I fail to see their applicability to this ease. At most, I would have remanded the case to the district court for a determination as to whether anything material has been omitted from the record by accident or error. As the record now stands, we have no way of knowing- — one way or the other — whether this court lacks jurisdiction.
The majority finds direct support for this dismissal in Jackson v. State, Wyo., 522 P.2d 1286 (1974). Yet, there is a major distinction between Jackson and the present case, which the majority ignores. In Jackson, there was a judgment in the record, which was filed after the filing of a notice of appeal. Under our then-existing rules, the record clearly showed a jurisdictional defect and we, therefore, dismissed the case. Here, the record is silent as to whether the municipal court entered a written judgment and sentence into its docket — as required by Rule 18(c), W.R.Cr.P.J.C. Like Jackson, our unpublished order in Norton v. City of Worland (No. 4741, decided March 9, 1978) premised an ultimate dismissal on a record that clearly showed a municipal court judgment that was entered after the defendant filed his notice. But, at least, in Norton we remanded the case to see if the record could be corrected before we determined that the appeal should be dismissed. Rule 4.04, W.R.A.P.,1 provides us with the authority to pursue in the present case the course taken in Norton. I simply do not understand how the majority can justify the inconsistent, and wholly unnecessary, approach it now embraces.
Second, the majority appears somewhat concerned that the defendant’s notice of appeal to the district court does not bear a date of filing in the municipal court — although it does not clearly hold that this, in itself, would warrant a dismissal. If the majority is implying that this defect is fatal in this case, I must disagree. Again, at most, this defect in the record would justify a remand for further inquiry as to the correctness of the record. Rule 23(b), W.R. Cr.P.J.C., requires the filing of a notice of appeal with the municipal court judge within ten days after entry of judgment. The absence of a stamped filing date on said notice of appeal is of little significance when it is realized that the date of said filing must also be entered on forms supplied by this court to the municipal courts. See, Rule 25(a), W.R.Cr.P.J.C., and the Criminal Docket form contained in an appendix thereto. Assuming the municipal court judge has followed the rules, I would be hard-pressed to hold this against the defendant in this case. Finally, there is no question but that the municipal court judge was served with the defendant’s notice of appeal, since the judge forwarded it, along with the rest of the record, to the district court. The only question is when it was served.
Third, a majority notes several problems regarding service. I do not regard — and I do not read the majority opinion as regarding — these defects troublesome in cases where the opposing party does not raise a concern relating thereto.
Certainly, orderly judicial administration demands compliance with procedural rules.2 This is particularly true when the question *90of compliance concerns the jurisdiction of this or any other court to entertain an appeal. However, before dismissing an appeal on jurisdictional grounds, there must be a clear basis for doing so. See, Downs v. State, Wyo., 581 P.2d 610 (1978). In the present case, there is no such clarity. Unless we are to return to the inflexible and unnecessarily harsh days of code-pleading, I consider the majority’s disposition of this case wholly unsupported by law or reason.

. Rule 4.04, W.R.A.P., provides:
“If any difference arises as to whether the record truly discloses what occurred in the district court, the difference shall be submitted to and settled by that court and the record made to conform to the truth. If anything material to either party is omitted from the record by error or accident or is misstated therein, the parties by stipulation, or the district court, either before or after the record is transmitted to the supreme court, or the supreme court, on proper suggestion or of its own initiative, may direct that the omission or misstatement be corrected, and if necessary that a supplemental record be certified and transmitted. All other questions as to the form and content of the record shall be presented to the supreme court by motion.”

. 1 take issue with the majority as to any comparability between the cases cited in the majority opinion and the present case. 1 am particu*90larly concerned with the court’s representation of the case of Mayland v. State, Wyo., 568 P.2d 897 (1977). The violation of a mandatory requirement to state the grounds for an appeal from a justice of peace conviction was raised, in Mayland, by the State through a motion to dismiss, which was ignored by the district court, and again in the State’s brief to this court. In addition, the failure to state such grounds was found to materially affect the ability of this court to consider only those issues which were raised below. The majority’s account of Mayland is, therefore, not only inaccurate; it is wholly inapplicable to the case at hand.