Court Opinion

ID: 9537244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:14:45.232012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:13.177855
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
specially concurring.
In the belief that to “never say never” is propitious in recognition of the incapacity of the human mind to always anticipate what the future will portend, I generally concur except with the expectancy that the unusual and inevitable exception will occur to the definitive rule now pronounced.
In recognition of the finality in the limit of one post-conviction petition as expressly mandated by specific terms of the statute, § 7-14-103, W.S.1977, now reenacted by Ch. 157, S.L. of Wyoming 1987, it follows that the “done right, then done” standard demonstratively applies.
However, the Constitutions of Wyoming and the United States cannot be abrogated by rule, and my reservation is retained for the rare exception involving events not now foreseeable, but at least as might result from ineffectiveness of counsel in the pri- or post-conviction relief petition, previously undisclosed prosecutorial misconduct, or undisclosed perjury in the original conviction which vitiates its legitimacy. Even more obvious in current news are convictions obtained under a later invalidated statute or prosecutorial adaptation. McNally v. United States, — U.S. —, 107 S.Ct. 2875, 97 L.Ed.2d 292 (1987).
Due process and equal protection intrinsic to the status of free people as guaranteed by our Constitutions should not have a time constraint as long as incarceration continues. Res judicata must, however, be applied for any system of delivery of justice to work.