Background
David Lee Smith pleaded guilty to felony destruction of property in 2024 and received a suspended sentence of three to six years with three years of probation. His probation conditions required him to abstain from alcohol, obey all laws, and complete an Adult Community Corrections program at the Casper Re-Entry Center (CRC). He was admitted to CRC on May 1, 2025. On May 20, he signed out to look for work but instead consumed alcohol, registering a blood alcohol content of .230 on his return. On May 23, he signed out for a medical appointment, did not return on time, and CRC reported him as an escapee. When CRC picked him up an hour later, he again tested positive for alcohol. Smith claimed a medication-induced blackout from an injection he received at his appointment. He was subsequently charged and convicted of escape by a jury. CRC terminated him from its program on May 30.
The State petitioned to revoke Smith’s probation on two grounds: the escape conviction and the termination from CRC. At the December 2025 revocation hearing, Smith’s counsel stated Smith did not deny the violations but wished to contest whether they were willful. After receiving testimony from Smith’s probation agent and Smith himself, the district court made an explicit willfulness finding—stating the jury’s guilty verdict on escape necessarily established willfulness and that the May 20 alcohol consumption was knowing—during the adjudicatory (first) phase of the proceedings. It then immediately proceeded to disposition, heard sentencing arguments, and imposed the underlying three-to-six-year sentence. Smith did not object at the time and appealed.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed. The Wyoming Supreme Court held that the district court erred by making its willfulness determination during the adjudicatory phase rather than the dispositional phase, satisfying the first two prongs of the plain error standard. Wyoming’s probation revocation procedure requires a two-part hearing under Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 7-13-302 through -305 and W.R.Cr.P. 39: the adjudicatory phase determines whether a violation occurred; the dispositional phase addresses whether revocation is appropriate and expressly requires the court to consider whether the violation was willful. Crouse v. State, 2017 WY 133, ¶ 10, 405 P.3d 216, 219. Placing the willfulness finding in the wrong phase violates a clear and unequivocal rule of law established in Bazzle v. State, 2019 WY 18, Brumme v. State, 2018 WY 115, and Robinson v. State, 2016 WY 90.
Smith failed the third prong, however, because he could not show material prejudice. The Court drew directly on Bazzle, where essentially identical procedural facts produced the same result. Here, Smith presented his willfulness arguments—the medication blackout theory—before the adjudicatory finding was made, and he reiterated those arguments in the dispositional phase, apologizing for drinking while standing by his claim that medication affected him. The court did not impose sentence until after hearing from both parties. Moreover, Smith never contested that his May 20 alcohol consumption was willful, and the district court independently found that violation established on the merits. That uncontested violation provided an independent, unimpeachable basis for revocation regardless of the escape charge, foreclosing any showing that the procedural error prejudiced the outcome.
The Court also declined the State’s invitation to apply the invited error doctrine. Invited error requires a party’s affirmative actions to knowingly and intelligently waive a right—a stricter standard than mere forfeiture. Smith’s counsel’s opening statement that Smith would not deny the violations but would contest willfulness was ambiguous: it could equally be read as an attempt to challenge the voluntariness element of the escape charge (a general intent crime) rather than as a deliberate waiver of the right to have willfulness decided in the dispositional phase.
Key Takeaways
- Under Wyoming’s two-phase probation revocation framework, willfulness must be addressed at the dispositional phase, not the adjudicatory phase; making the finding early is error as a matter of law—but that error alone does not compel reversal.
- To obtain reversal for premature willfulness findings, a defendant must show material prejudice: that the procedural error actually denied him a meaningful opportunity to present his willfulness arguments before a consequential ruling. Where, as in Bazzle and now Smith, the defendant addressed willfulness in both phases and the court sentenced only after full argument, prejudice is absent.
- When a probationer faces revocation on multiple independent violations and fails to contest willfulness for even one of them, that uncontested violation forecloses a prejudice argument—revocation was going to happen regardless.
- The fine line between waiver and forfeiture matters: counsel’s ambiguous statements at the outset of a revocation hearing will not be treated as a knowing waiver of the right to have willfulness decided in the correct phase unless the record makes the intentional relinquishment unambiguous.
Why It Matters
Wyoming criminal defense practitioners handling probation revocations should note that the adjudicatory/dispositional distinction is a real procedural protection—the Supreme Court has now reaffirmed three times (after Bazzle and Brumme) that placing willfulness in the wrong phase is a clear legal error. But Smith also makes clear that obtaining reversal requires more than pointing to the error: defendants must articulate precisely how the premature determination denied them a fair opportunity to litigate willfulness or affected the court’s actual sentencing calculus. Counsel should object on the record when district courts make willfulness findings during the adjudicatory phase, creating a preserved error rather than a plain error claim. For the prosecution, Smith illustrates that pinning revocation on multiple independently-established violations—particularly one the defendant openly conceded—insulates the proceedings from reversal even when procedural error occurs.
The Court’s treatment of invited error is also useful: mere strategic ambiguity in an opening statement does not constitute the knowing, intelligent relinquishment necessary to trigger that doctrine. Defense counsel need not fear that explaining they plan to contest only willfulness will be construed as waiving their client’s right to have willfulness decided at the proper stage.