Mogard v. City of Laramie

2001 WY 88, 32 P.3d 313, 2001 Wyo. LEXIS 107, 2001 WL 1112263
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 24, 2001
Docket00-217
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 2001 WY 88 (Mogard v. City of Laramie) 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
Mogard v. City of Laramie, 2001 WY 88, 32 P.3d 313, 2001 Wyo. LEXIS 107, 2001 WL 1112263 (Wyo. 2001).

Opinion

VOIGT, Justice.

[T1] The appellant, Bennie J. Mogard, was arrested in Laramie for driving while under the influence. Upon being advised of the implied consent to chemical testing provisions of Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 31-6-102(32)() (LexisNexis 2001), the appellant asked to speak to an attorney before submitting to the test. That request was denied. Subsequent ly, based upon this denial, he filed a Motion to Suppress Breath Test in the municipal court. Citing Wheeler v. State, 705 P.2d 861, 863 (Wyo.1985), the municipal judge denied the motion on the ground that there is no constitutional right to counsel prior to taking a breath test. The appellant then utilized W.R.Cr.P. ll(a@)@) to enter a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal the specific issue raised in his motion.

[12] In the district court, the appellant and the City of Laramie filed a Joint Motion for Certification of Question to the Wyoming Supreme Court. The district court obliged with an Order Certifying Question to the Wyoming Supreme Court. This Court agreed to accept certification, and we granted leave to the State of Wyoming to file a brief as amicus curiae.

THE CERTIFIED QUESTION

Does Article 1, Section 10 of the Wyoming Constitution give a defendant a limited right to consult with an attorney before deciding whether or not to submit to chemical testing for blood aleohol?

THE STATUTORY CONTEXT

[¥8] Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 81-5-288 (LexisNexis 2001) forbids what is commonly known as driving while under the influence (DWUT). 1 Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 31-6-102(a2)0) provides that, when someone is arrested for *315 DWUI, he is "deemed to have given consent, subject to the provisions of this act, to a chemical test or tests of his blood, breath or urine for the purpose of determining the aleohol concentration or controlled substance content of his blood." Before a chemical test may be administered to the arrested person, he must be advised of certain legal effects of either taking or refusing to take the test. Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 31-6-102(a)@ii). These implied consent statutes are the exelusive procedures to be followed in determining the blood-aleohol level of a person arrested for DWUI. Van Order v. State, 600 P.2d 1056, 1058 (Wyo.1979) (citing State v. Chastain, 594 P.2d 458, 461 (Wyo.1979), overruled on other grounds by Olson v. State, 698 P.2d 107 (Wyo.1985)).

STATE CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

This Court has previously held that neither the Fifth nor the Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution grants an accused a right to counsel before deciding whether to submit to chemical testing upon an arrest for DWUI. Nestus v. State Dept. of Revenue and Taxation, Motor Vehicle Div., 791 P.2d 939, 942-44 (Wyo.1990); Wheeler, 705 P.2d at 863-64. However, in several cases in recent years, we have indicated an interest in performing a separate state constitutional analysis when issues arise under both the federal and state constitutions. That is what the appellant now seeks.

Our "separate state constitutional analysis" jurisprudence has undergone a fairly rapid transformation. Saldana v. State, 846 P.2d 604 (Wyo.1993), illustrates the various views of state constitutional analysis then held by members of this Court. The primary issue in Saldana was the reasonableness of a search and seizure. Interestingly enough, Saldana raised this issue solely under Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 4, rather than the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas relied almost exclusively on the Fourth Amendment and federal precedent in finding the search and seizure constitutional, and he dismissed the notion of finding any greater protections in the state constitution. Saldana, 846 P.2d at 610-12. In a special concurrence, however, Justice Macy forcefully rejected "the idea that in the future we will blindly follow the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution when we interpret the Wyoming Constitution." Saldana, 846 P.2d at 621 (Macy, J., specially concurring). Perhaps even more forcefully, Justice Urbigkit issued a forty-page dissenting opinion, in which he dismissed the idea that state constitutional provisions necessarily were meant to mirror their federal counterparts. Id. at 624-64 (Urbigkit, J., dissenting). Finally, Justice Golden concurred, but identified an "analytical technique" whereby litigants could, in the future, present a separate state constitutional analysis. Id. at 621-24 (Golden, J., concurring). 2

[16] Three years later, in a unanimous opinion, this Court rejected a separate state constitutional analysis of a search and seizure issue, but only because the "assertion, unaccompanied by authority or argument, is insufficient to persuade us to consider whether the Wyoming Constitution's Art. 1, § 4 should be independently interpreted as offering greater protection than its federal counterpart." Gronski v. State, 910 P.2d 561, 565 (Wyo.1996). See also Guerra v. State, 897 P.2d 447, 451 (Wyo.1995) (limiting the application of separate state constitutional analysis to the extent the appellant actually developed the analysis). Finally, in Vasquez v. State, 990 P.2d 476 (Wyo.1999), the separate state constitutional analysis doctrine met up with an appellant prepared to utilize the analytical technique identified in Justice Golden's concurrence in Sauidana. Vasquez represents a significant step in the development of state constitutional analysis in Wyoming, inasmuch as it finds the same to be "required unless a party desires to have an issue decided solely under the Federal Constitution." Vasquez, 990 P.2d at 485.

APPLYING THE SALDANA TEST

[17] We should not lose focus of the limited issue before us. We determined in Wheeler, 705 P.2d at 863, that the Sixth *316 Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads as follows, does not create a right to counsel before a DWUI arrestee decides whether to take a chemical test:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and fo have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

(Emphasis added.) The question we now face is whether Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 10, which reads as follows, provides such a right:

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to defend in person and by counsel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation, to have a copy thereof, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process served for obtaining witnesses, and to a speedy trial, by an impartial jury of the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed.

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Bluebook (online)
2001 WY 88, 32 P.3d 313, 2001 Wyo. LEXIS 107, 2001 WL 1112263, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mogard-v-city-of-laramie-wyo-2001.