Howard Blakely, Appellant (defendant Below) v. State of Wyoming, Appellee (plaintiff Below)

Summary

The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed Howard Blakely's felony conviction for misbranding livestock, holding that the trial court properly ruled his motions to dismiss and suppress untimely under Rules 40(e) and 43 of the Wyoming Rules of Criminal Procedure, properly refused his suspicion-and-conjecture instruction, and properly declined to add words to the circumstantial-evidence instruction. The court adopted the rule that where the jury is properly instructed on reasonable doubt no separate instruction on circumstantial evidence is required, and it expressly overruled the contrary portion of its prior decision in Mulligan v. State. Justice Thomas, concurring in a writing joined by Chief Justice Guthrie, viewed the circumstantial-evidence instruction actually given as fundamental error under Cosco v. State; Justice McClintock, dissenting, joined by Justice Rose, would have reversed and remanded for a merits ruling on the suppression motion and objected to overruling Mulligan on an unbriefed point.