Gauna v. State — Presentence credit limited across separate cases
The Wyoming Supreme Court held that jail time already credited to a probation-revocation sentence did not have to be credited again in two separate felony cases.
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Appellate Procedure
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Brown v. State — Drug convictions and 30-to-40-year sentence affirmed
The Wyoming Supreme Court held that Brown waived a new dog-sniff suppression theory and upheld the admission of coded drug-related messages under Rule 404(b).
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Walker v. State — Convictions affirmed, illegal sentences remanded
The Wyoming Supreme Court held that witness intimidation is a specific-intent conduct offense, affirmed Walker’s convictions, and remanded to correct illegal misdemeanor sentences.
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Todd v. State — Wyoming Supreme Court Clarifies Child-Exploitation Attempt
The Wyoming Supreme Court held that asking a child to touch an adult’s exposed genitals can support attempted sexual exploitation under the statute’s masturbation category.
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Daniels v. State — Wyoming Supreme Court Rejects Ineffective-Assistance Bid
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the denial of a new trial because substantial independent evidence defeated prejudice from counsel’s alleged errors.
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Duncan v. State — Court Defines Explicit Sexual Conduct and Upholds Sentence
The Wyoming Supreme Court held that digital penetration and use of a sexual device qualify as explicit sexual conduct under the child-exploitation statute and upheld an aggregate 21-to-30-year sentence.
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Glenn — Wyoming Supreme Court Upholds Bicycle Stop and Enforces Conditional-Plea Limits
The Wyoming Supreme Court upheld a bicycle stop based on an objectively reasonable factual mistake and refused to review issues not specifically preserved in a conditional plea.
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Beedy — Wyoming Supreme Court Upholds Converse County Venue and Clothing Restitution
Wyoming’s high court held that vulnerable-adult exploitation spanning two counties could be tried in Converse County and affirmed restitution for clothing made inaccessible by the crime.
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Keller & Cruz v. Wyoming DFS — Section 14-2-309(a)(v) Requires No Reunification Efforts Finding, and DFS Procedural Gaps Do Not Defeat Termination Unless They Impair a Parent’s Fundamental Rights
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the termination of both parents’ parental rights to three children under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-2-309(a)(v), holding that the statute—requiring only that the child has been in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months and that the parent is unfit—does not impose a reasonable-reunification-efforts requirement; that DFS’s documentation gaps did not reach the structural failure level required by MB; and that clear and convincing evidence of parental unfitness supported the district court’s termination order.
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Smith v. Wyoming — Premature Willfulness Finding in Probation Revocation Adjudicatory Phase Is Error, But Not Plain Error Without Material Prejudice
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a probation revocation, holding that the district court erred by determining willfulness during the adjudicatory phase rather than the dispositional phase—a clear violation of Wyoming’s two-part revocation framework—but that the error did not constitute plain error because Smith suffered no material prejudice: he presented his willfulness arguments before the court’s finding and again at disposition, and an independently established, uncontested violation independently supported revocation.
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Campbell v. State — Totality of Circumstances, Not Paragraph-by-Paragraph Scrutiny, Controls Probable Cause Review
The Wyoming Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the denial of Christopher Campbell’s motion to suppress evidence seized from his Evanston residence, holding that Deputy Barker’s search-warrant affidavit established probable cause under the totality-of-circumstances test. The court rejected Campbell’s paragraph-by-paragraph critique of the affidavit as methodologically improper: Wyoming law requires courts to evaluate the affidavit as a whole, not in piecemeal fashion. Viewed in its totality, a convergence of circumstantial links—a matching U-Haul seen at the residence, receipts tying an associate to both the truck and the address, Arizona connections shared by the stolen vehicle and the occupants, and matching tire tracks—established the required nexus between the evidence sought and the place to be searched.
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Cross v. Albright — Mediated Settlement Email Unenforceable Where Parties Never Agreed on Mechanism for Ditch Access or Storage Restriction
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a finding that a mediated settlement email was unenforceable because the parties never agreed on whether ditch access would be implemented through an easement, license, or other interest and never specified whether a storage restriction would run with the land or remain a personal obligation, leaving essential terms undefined and creating at most an agreement to agree.
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Allen v. State — Guilty Plea Does Not Waive Challenge to Court-Ordered Asset Sale Securing Public Defender Fees
The Wyoming Supreme Court reversed and remanded a criminal case in which the district court ordered the defendant to sell a vehicle and deposit the proceeds as a condition of maintaining his public defender appointment. The court held that the subsequent guilty plea did not waive the challenge because the issue was unrelated to guilt or conviction, and that the district court exceeded its statutory authority under Wyoming’s public defender reimbursement statute by compelling a pre-sentencing forced asset liquidation.
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Idler — Divorce Appeal Summarily Affirmed Where Counsel’s Briefs Lacked Cogent Argument
The Wyoming Supreme Court summarily affirmed a divorce decree granting Mother sole custody of ten children and assigning nearly all marital debt to incarcerated Father, holding that Father’s nine-issue opening brief contained no cogent argument — just general legal principles with no case-specific analysis — and that his reply brief improperly raised four new issues while failing to respond to Mother’s arguments. Attorney fees under W.R.A.P. 10.05 were declined as a matter of discretion, but costs were awarded.
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In re: AC and BI — Juvenile Court’s Mid-Hearing Cure Satisfies Due Process When Pro Se Parent Declines Opportunity to Cross-Examine
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a child neglect adjudication under plain-error review, holding that a juvenile court’s failure to invite a pro se mother to present opening and closing statements or to cross-examine witnesses was cured mid-hearing when the court three times offered her the opportunity to recall and question any witness—an opportunity she declined.
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In re AC and BI — Wyoming Supreme Court Affirms Neglect Finding, Upholds Admission of Post-Removal Hair Follicle Tests
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a juvenile court’s finding that Father neglected his two minor children, holding the court did not abuse its discretion in admitting hair follicle test results collected after the date of alleged neglect, because the tests covered the relevant period and any challenge to their probative force went to weight rather than admissibility.
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Moran v. Meadowlark Academy — Conservator Who Waited 190 Days to Answer Counterclaims Cannot Set Aside Default Without Articulating Rule 60(b) Grounds
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a default judgment entered against a conservator who waited 190 days to answer counterclaims and then failed to move to set aside the default with any citation to W.R.C.P. 55(c) or 60(b), failed to identify a Rule 60(b) justification, and failed to address the three-factor good cause test. A vague oral request to set aside default, unsupported by legal authority, does not satisfy the moving party’s burden.