Wisconson Prosecutorial Misconduct

This is the last in the series of all 50 states.

study of criminal appeals from 1970 to the present revealed 98 Wyoming cases in which the defendant alleged prosecutorial error or misconduct. In nine, judges ruled a prosecutor’s conduct prejudiced the defendant and reversed or remanded the conviction, sentence or indictment. In 10, a dissenting judge or judges thought the prosecutor’s conduct prejudiced the defendant.

Seven of the reversals stemmed from prosecutors conduct at trial such as improper arguments or witness examination, and two involved the prosecution withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense.

Wyoming’s current Attorney General, Patrick Crank, tried at least two of the 98 cases while he served as Natrona County’s prosecutor. In both cases, the state Supreme Court’s majority upheld the conviction, but dissenting judges thought his conduct prejudiced the defendant.

In 1990, Crank charged Steven Haworth with aggravated assault and battery after Haworth used a pocketknife in a fight outside of a bar. Haworth couldn’t make bail, so he remained incarcerated for two months before his trial began. During that time, his defense attorney made arrangements for Haworth to prepare for trial in the actual courtroom. Because Haworth was still in custody at this time, a sheriff’s deputy accompanied them to the practice sessions. The sheriff’s deputy eavesdropped and relayed what happened at the sessions to prosecutor Crank, who then used the information to win the conviction. At trial, Haworth claimed he used the knife in self defense. The jury convicted him anyway.

In October 1992, the state Supreme Court upheld Haworth’s conviction because “the prosecutor’s intrusion into the attorney-client relationship” did not “substantially” prejudice Haworth or influence the jury. Justice Walter Urbigkit dissented “with anguish and concern.”

“This appeal tests the basic morality and integrity of the criminal trial process within Wyoming's judicial system,” he wrote. “By this decision, I perceive Wyoming's courts to come up wanting. This case portrays hardball lawyering in a most virulent and divisive fashion.”

In 1994, Haworth filed a writ of habeas corpus. The U.S. District Court for Wyoming reversed Haworth’s conviction because “the sheriff and the prosecutor took an unconscionable advantage of the defendant by sharing the results of confidential communications.”

In April 1992, Urbigkit dissented in another opinion addressing Crank’s tactics. Crank prosecuted James Pearson for trying to cash a forged check. During trial, he asked a witness a question that “assumed a fact known to the Crank in the way it was asked to have been untrue.” In addition, Urbigkit ruled that Crank’s use of mathematical deduction to prove Pearson’s guilt was improper.

“This is in no regard a strong evidentiary case of guilt,” Urbigkit wrote. “Racial prejudice, intimation of a previous history of bad conduct and a questionable identification supplemented by a thinly disguised mathematically directed racial final argument resulted in conviction.”

In June 2002, the state Supreme Court reversed Deborah Hensley’s and Rex Davis’ convictions because Sweetwater County prosecutors John Prokos and Brett Johnson did not disclose exculpatory evidence to their defense attorneys before the trials.

Prokos and Johnson separately charged Hensley and Davis with conspiracy to deliver and delivery of methamphetamine after a confidential informant tape recorded the alleged transaction. The informant, Roberta Morris, took the stand in both trials and testified that she was trying to get out of the drug lifestyle, and had used methamphetamine only once during the two years she worked as an informant. Hensley and Davis’ defense attorneys did not know that two months before the trials, another informant had tape recorded Morris snorting lines of methamphetamine.

After the defense attorneys learned about the evidence of drug use, which would impeach the prosecution’s only witness, they requested an evidentiary hearing. At the hearing, the informant who taped Morris testified that Morris had told her that Davis wasn’t actually involved in the drug sale, but she testified against him so she might gain back custody of her children. The informant also testified that Morris told her she knew how to manipulate the recording device to prevent the tape from showing what actually occurred.

In June 2002, the state Supreme Court reversed both Hensley and Davis convictions because the prosecutors withheld the exculpatory evidence.

Defense attorney Keith Goody said Prokos and Johnson did not intentionally withhold evidence of Morris’ drug use. Instead, he said, police officers knew and didn’t inform the prosecutors. “The cops didn't disclose the evidence, but it's still the prosecutor's responsibility,” he said. “In this particular situation, the prosecutors were shocked when this violation turned up.”
  ¶ 10:02 AM