Mark A. Hopkinson, A/k/a Mark Allen Hopkinson, Appellant (defendant) v. the State of Wyoming, Appellee (plaintiff)

Summary

The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed Mark Hopkinson's death sentence imposed by a second sentencing jury for the murder of Jeff Green, holding that the legislature's death-penalty appellate-review provisions do not invade the court's rule-making power or jurisdiction, that the evidence sufficed under Jackson v. Virginia to support the aggravating circumstances of murder to avoid lawful arrest, pecuniary gain, and especially heinous, atrocious or cruel murder, and that resubmitting aggravating circumstances rejected by the first jury violated no double-jeopardy protection because there is no 'acquittal' of an aggravator in the penalty phase. The court also rejected challenges based on non-statutory aggravation evidence, proportionality to a co-defendant's plea bargain, art. 1, § 15 of the Wyoming Constitution, the attorney-client privilege (applying a crime-fraud rationale), the refused due-process instruction, effectiveness of counsel, and grand-jury use. Justice Rose, dissenting, would have reversed because no evidence connected Hopkinson to the torture underlying the heinous-atrocious-or-cruel aggravator and because resubmission of the aggravators found inapplicable by the first jury twice placed him in jeopardy.