Background
Brian Joeseph Melber was charged in Natrona County in June 2023 with conspiracy to deliver fentanyl, and Wyoming authorities obtained a warrant for his arrest. Before officers could arrest him, he left Wyoming. Police in Waterloo, Iowa, located him in December 2023, but he tried to evade them in a vehicle and collided with a police vehicle. Iowa then charged him with a felony and a misdemeanor arising from that conduct. He remained in an Iowa jail for 259 days before pleading guilty to both Iowa offenses on September 6, 2024. The Iowa court imposed suspended prison sentences and probation, after which Melber became available for extradition to Wyoming.
Melber later pleaded guilty to the Wyoming fentanyl-conspiracy charge. In July 2025, the Natrona County District Court sentenced him to four and one-half to six years and awarded 307 days of presentence credit, measured from the date the Iowa proceedings ended through the date of his Wyoming sentencing. Melber sought another 259 days for the earlier Iowa confinement. After voluntarily dismissing a direct appeal, he filed a pro se motion under Wyoming Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a), arguing that the omitted credit made his sentence illegal. The district court denied relief. Melber also sought appointed counsel for the resulting appeal, but he did not file a new or amended notice of appeal identifying the later order denying counsel.
The Court’s Holding
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the denial of additional presentence credit. Justice Jarosh explained that Wyoming requires credit against both the minimum and maximum terms when presentence confinement results solely from a defendant’s inability to post bond on the offense of conviction. The rule does not extend to confinement that would have continued regardless of the defendant’s ability to secure release on that offense. When multiple crimes are involved, the court asks whether the confinement was attributable solely to the Wyoming charge or instead rested on an independent or intervening basis.
The 259 disputed days were attributable to Melber’s separate Iowa crimes. He was held on those charges, the Iowa proceedings had not concluded, and he was not yet available for extradition to Wyoming. The active Wyoming warrant did not change the analysis because the Iowa charges independently supported continued confinement. The court also rejected Melber’s causal argument that he would not have committed the Iowa crimes but for the effort to arrest him on the Wyoming warrant. Once he committed the new offenses, they became an intervening basis for detention. Wyoming Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 required the sentencing court to state the applicable credit, but it did not require credit for every day spent in custody on unrelated charges.
The court separately held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the denial of appointed counsel. Melber filed his notice of appeal before the district court entered that denial and never amended the notice or filed a separate one identifying the later order. Under Wyoming Rules of Appellate Procedure 1.03(a) and 2.07(a), timely identification of the order being appealed is jurisdictional. A notice perfects review only of the orders it identifies, so the court could not reach the counsel issue.
Key Takeaways
- Wyoming presentence credit is mandatory only when confinement is attributable solely to the offense being sentenced, including custody caused by an inability to post bond on that offense.
- Separate out-of-state charges defeat a claim for Wyoming credit when those charges independently would have kept the defendant confined, even if a Wyoming warrant contributed to the initial encounter with police.
- A defendant’s claim that the original Wyoming case indirectly caused later criminal conduct does not erase the later offenses as an intervening, independent ground for detention.
- A notice of appeal must identify each judgment or appealable order to be reviewed. When a later order is entered after the notice, counsel should timely amend the notice or file a separate appeal as the rules permit.
Why It Matters
Melber gives Wyoming sentencing lawyers a practical framework for custody-credit disputes that cross state lines. The decisive question is not simply whether a Wyoming warrant existed during the disputed period. Counsel should build a date-specific record showing the legal basis for custody, whether another jurisdiction had unresolved charges, when that jurisdiction released its hold, and when the defendant became available for extradition. Records from the foreign case may determine whether confinement was truly caused by the Wyoming offense.
The opinion also highlights a separate appellate trap. A notice filed before a post-judgment order cannot ordinarily preserve review of that later order without an amendment or an additional notice. Wyoming practitioners handling overlapping sentencing and appointed-counsel issues should calendar each appealable ruling independently. The Supreme Court treated compliance as jurisdictional, leaving no room to reach the merits based merely on briefing the issue.