Harris v. State

2011 WY 70, 250 P.3d 163, 2011 Wyo. LEXIS 73, 2011 WL 1520021
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedApril 22, 2011
DocketS-10-0144
StatusPublished

This text of 2011 WY 70 (Harris v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harris v. State, 2011 WY 70, 250 P.3d 163, 2011 Wyo. LEXIS 73, 2011 WL 1520021 (Wyo. 2011).

Opinion

HILL, Justice.

[¶1] Appellant, Leroy Francis Harris (Harris), challenges that portion of the district court's Sentence which required him to pay, as a portion of the costs of prosecution, the fees paid by the State to some of the witnesses who testified against him. Harris was charged with aggravated assault and battery, and the victim of that charged crime was Diane Hampton. Harris was acquitted by the jury of that felony count. Harris also faced trial on a second count, a misdemeanor, which was interference with a peace officer, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-5-204(a) (LexisNexis 2009). As a part of his sentence, Harris was required to pay a portion of the costs of prosecution (witness fees and costs) in the amount of $548.16. Harris contends that he should not have to pay witness fees for witnesses whose testimony was primarily related to the felony count for which he was acquitted, as well as because the State failed to present any evidence to support its claim for the witness fees at issue herein. We will affirm the Judgment but reverse and remand the Sentence with directions that the district court amend the Sentence imposed so as to remove the provision that Harris be required to pay the witness fees at issue in this appeal.

ISSUE

[¶2] Harris poses his issue this way:

*164 Did the trial court abuse its discretion when it assessed costs of prosecution fees associated with the State's witnesses without an adequate showing by the State?

The State rephrases that somewhat:

Did the district court abuse its discretion by assessing the appropriate costs of prosecution associated with the State's witnesses?

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

[¶3] The crimes at issue here occurred during a time when the Hampton family was erecting a fence that separated the parties' abutting land parcels. The district court pronounced sentence at an initial sentencing hearing on April 15, 2010. That hearing was continued on April 20, 2010, and Harris was satisfied with the sentence imposed except for the witness fees portion of it-and he vehemently objected to that both in his own words and through his defense counsel. The only indication of what the witness fees were in the case came before the court in the form of argument by the prosecutor in favor of a maximum sentence, as well as for witness fees and other usual sentence provisions. The only provision of the sentence in contest here is the witness fees, although that was not the case at the sentencing hearings. This is all there is in the record about witness fees:

[Prosecutor]: Additionally, your Honor I would place on the record that the county attorney's office paid out the following witness and mileage and meal fees: Cody McGuffin, $564.15. Mr. McGuffin did not testify at trial. He was brought here. He was kept here until we decided that we did not need him any longer. Steve Hampton, $150.48. He did testify, and I believe he testified in matters relevant to the convietion in this case.
Wonita Diane Hampton [victim in the aggravated assault case], $90. I believe she did testify in matters relevant to the conviction in this case. We paid Shane Hampton $51. I have no recollection if he testified regarding interference or not. Debra Larsen, we paid her $108.68 in witness fees and mileage. She did testify of matters relevant to the conviction.
We paid Victor Arriaza $51. He did testify. We paid Chance Hampton $153.00. He did not testify. The total amount was $1,163.31, and we'd ask that the Court impose some or all of those costs against the defendant.

The district court specifically did not allow the witness fees for witnesses Arriaza and McGuffin, but did allow all other witness fees to be taxed against Harris. For purposes of clarity and context, we note that it was accepted at the trial that a defendant could not be taxed with costs for witnesses who testified only about a erime of which the defendant was not convicted. It was also accepted that a witness need not necessarily testify for such costs to be taxed, as long as there is some showing the witness was called for a proper purpose. It was also accepted that such costs could be taxed if the witness's testimony was at least in part related to a crime for which a defendant was convicted. None of those generally accepted principles are at issue here. However, in any event, the district court retains the discretion to allow or disallow such costs depending on all the facts and circumstances of the case. Steve Hampton, Diane Hampton, and Debra Larson each testified a little bit about the interference count. Shane Hampton did not testify about the interference count, and Chanee Hampton did not testify at all. The root of Harris' objection to paying these costs is that all of the witnesses who were allowed fees were on the Hamptons' side of the fence, which was the issue between the Hamptons and Harris. The Hamptons' testimony concerning the misdemeanor charge was only incidental to that charge. The crux of their testimony went to the aggravated assault charge. The detailed evidence concerning the interference charge was given by the police officer who was the subject of Harris' interference.

DISCUSSION

[T5] Perhaps the source of some of the difficulties in this case can be traced to our statutes which govern this subject. They are something of a hodgepodge and, secondarily, these sorts of matters have come up *165 only seldom in our cases over the years. Moreover, to the extent there is pertinent case law and treatise law in point, that law has evolved over the years so that the readily available precedents are not dispositive of the circumstances that are before us in this case.

[¶6] In pertinent part W.R.Cr.P. 17(c)(1) provides:

(c) Allowable fees and expenses.-
(1) Non-expert Fees.-In addition to actual costs of travel, meals and lodging each non-expert witness shall be paid a witness fee of $30.00 for each full day and $15.00 for each half day necessarily spent traveling to and from the proceeding and in attendance at the proceeding. 1

[¶7] Wyo. Stat. Aun. § 7-11-505 (Lexis-Nexis 2009) provides:

§ 7-11-505. Payment of costs of prosecution.
Payment of the costs of prosecution may be added to and made a part of the sentence in any felony or misdemeanor case if the court determines that the defendant
has an ability to pay or that a reasonable probability exists that the defendant will have an ability to pay.

[T8] In Bruckner v. State, 972 P.2d 141, 142-48 (Wyo.1999) we held:

Bruckner contends that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered him to pay the costs of litigation. The state counters that the costs which were imposed by the trial court are authorized under Wyoming law.
A court does not abuse its discretion unless it acts in a manner which exceeds the bounds of reason under the cireum-stances. Raymond v. Raymond, 956 P.2d 329, 331 (Wyo.1998).

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Related

State v. Faulkner
292 P.2d 1045 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1956)
State v. Dieringer
708 P.2d 1 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1985)
Raymond v. Raymond
956 P.2d 329 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1998)
Kaess v. State
748 P.2d 698 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1987)
Juarez v. State
791 P.2d 287 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1990)
Bruckner v. State
972 P.2d 141 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1999)

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Bluebook (online)
2011 WY 70, 250 P.3d 163, 2011 Wyo. LEXIS 73, 2011 WL 1520021, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harris-v-state-wyo-2011.