Walter Jones, Appellant (defendant Below) v. the State of Wyoming, Appellee (plaintiff Below)

Summary

The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed Walter Jones's manslaughter conviction for the fatal head injury of his nineteen-month-old stepdaughter. It held the circumstantial evidence — expert testimony that death was caused by blunt trauma to the head, bruises absent before the child was left alone with appellant for twenty to twenty-five minutes — permitted a reasonable jury to find he inflicted the fatal blow, and that a child-abuse lesser-included-offense instruction was not required because the evidence showed the accused either guilty or not guilty of the higher offense. Neither improper prosecutorial closing comment warranted reversal: the first was cured by the trial court's immediate clarification, and the second, though a clear misstatement of law, was an isolated remark that did not constitute plain error. No separate writings were filed.