Brightwell v. State

• Decision Date: 22 July 1981
• Docket Number: No. 5450,5450
• Citation: 631 P.2d 1048
• Parties: Gwen BRIGHTWELL, Appellant (Defendant), v. STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 1048

631 P.2d 1048

Gwen BRIGHTWELL, Appellant (Defendant), v. STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. 5450.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

July 22, 1981.

Richard Honaker, Appellate Counsel, Wyoming Public Defender, Gerald M. Gallivan, Director, and Jodi E. Brayton, Intern, Wyoming Defender Aid Program, Laramie, for appellant.

Steven S. Freudenthal, Atty. Gen., Gerald A. Stack, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Sharon A. Lyman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Cheyenne, for appellee.

Before ROSE, C. J., and RAPER, THOMAS, ROONEY and BROWN, JJ.

ROSE, Chief Justice.

Appellant, Ms. Brightwell, was convicted of the crime of assault with a deadly weapon as embodied in § 6-4-506(b), W.S.1977, and appeals her conviction. She raises one issue for this court's decision, namely that insufficient evidence of the crime of aggravated assault was adduced at her trial since the State failed to prove an attempted battery on her part which is a necessary element of the crime. We agree that in order to convict a defendant of the crime of aggravated assault under § 6-4-506, W.S.1977, the State must produce evidence of attempted battery. Thus, the sole issue in this appeal concerns whether the State met this burden in her case. For the reasons discussed below we will affirm the appellant's conviction.

On the evening of July 26, 1980, the appellant, along with a friend, Christine Harper, flagged down a small pickup truck driven by Mr. Donald E. Emerson. Mr. Emerson stopped his truck because Ms. Harper was standing directly in his lane of traffic. The two young ladies then proceeded to get into the truck even though Mr. Emerson made no request that they do so. Ms. Brightwell positioned herself next to Mr. Emerson and Ms. Harper sat in the passenger seat. Upon gaining entrance to the truck, the women requested a ride to the supermarket. Mr. Emerson decided to comply with this request in order to get rid of them. Once in the pickup, the appellant began to make advances toward Mr. Emerson and requested that they go find a place to sleep. When Emerson refused, appellant Brightwell placed her left arm around Mr. Emerson's neck and told him that she and Ms. Harper needed money. Upon Mr. Emerson stating that he had no money, the appellant said to Mr. Emerson, "I mean business," whereupon she drew a sharp kitchen knife from her purse and held it in her right hand about three or four inches from Mr. Emerson's side. In the interim, Ms. Harper had acquired from the glove compartment of the truck, and held in her hands, a sharp letter opener. Emerson then drove approximately three blocks to a Mini-Mart where he jumped out of his truck and called the police. The appellant tried to grab his wrist as he left the truck but she was unsuccessful. Throughout the short ride, Ms. Brightwell did not attempt to stab Mr. Emerson, nor did he suffer any injury.

At trial the appellant was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon under § 6-4-506(b), supra, and Ms. Harper was acquitted.

As mentioned previously, the crime of assault with a deadly weapon or aggravated assault is embodied in § 6-4-506(b), supra. This section reads:

"(b) With dangerous weapon. Whoever, while armed with a dangerous or deadly weapon, including an unloaded firearm, maliciously perpetrates an assault or an assault and battery upon any human being, shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), or be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than fourteen (14) years, or both."

However, the inquiry as to the elements of the crime of aggravated assault cannot stop with a reading of § 6-4-506(b), supra, since in Evanson v. State, Wyo., 546 P.2d 412 (1976), we said that it is also necessary to look to the corresponding statutory definition of assault. ¹

The crime of assault is now defined in § 6-4-501, W.S.1977, and it reads in pertinent part:

"Whoever, having the present ability to do so, unlawfully attempts to commit a violent injury on the person of another, is guilty of an assault and shall be fined in any sum not exceeding fifty dollars ($50.00)."

Thus, in Evanson, supra, 546 P.2d at 416, we set out the elements of the crime of assault with a deadly weapon to be as follows:

" * * * To constitute an assault with a deadly weapon (aggravated assault, § 6-70B), actual injury need not be caused. The elements of the offense are the unlawful attempt with unlawful intent (maliciously) to accomplish a violent injury upon the person of another, the use of a deadly weapon in that attempt and the present ability to accomplish the injury. People v. Rocha, 1971, 3 Cal.3d 893, 92 Cal.Rptr. 172, 479 P.2d 372. In Elliott v. State, 1934, 47 Wyo. 36, 45, 30 P.2d 791, 793, are several definitions making it clear that the term 'maliciously' embraces, amongst other things, the element of unlawful intent." (Emphasis added.)

In Brown v. State, Wyo., 590 P.2d 1312 (1979), we were called upon to decide the effect of the "including an unloaded firearm" language in § 6-4-506(b), supra, which had been added to § 6-70B, W.S.1957, in 1975 and thus made an element of our aggravated-assault law. In that case, we determined that the effect of the amendment was to change the "present ability" element in § 6-4-501, supra, to that of "apparent ability." Id., 590 P.2d at 1315. We did not find that the added language was intended by the legislature as an adoption of a second type of assault. In Fuller v. State, Wyo., 568 P.2d 900, 904 (1977), we stated that "(b)y its statutes, Wyoming has limited criminal assault to attempted battery." Our decision in Brown did not change this. Thus, even though the trend in the law of criminal assault is to punish not only the attempted-battery type but also the intentional-apprehension-of-fear type, which is more in the nature of the tort concept of assault, the Wyoming legislature has not yet adopted this latter approach. ²

Considering our decision in Brown, the elements of the crime of assault with a deadly weapon in Wyoming are now the unlawful attempt with unlawful intent (maliciously) to commit a violent injury (attempted battery) upon the person of another, with the use of a deadly weapon in that attempt and the apparent ability to accomplish that injury.

It is now necessary to analyze the facts of this case in relation to the above elements to determine whether the appellant was properly convicted of assault with a deadly weapon under § 6-4-506(b), supra. Clearly, the appellant in this case held in her hand a deadly weapon when she pointed the knife at Mr. Emerson. We said in Evanson, supra, 546 P.2d at 416, that "(a) weapon, when used in a manner capable of producing and likely to produce death or great bodily injury, is a deadly weapon." A knife with a six-inch blade, like that held by Ms. Brightwell, clearly satisfies this test. In addition, the appellant had the "apparent ability" to commit a violent injury upon Mr. Emerson when she put her left arm around his neck and held the knife a few inches from his body.

Likewise, from these same facts Ms. Brightwell's intent to commit a violent injury upon Mr. Emerson can be inferred. In Fuller, supra, 568 P.2d at 904, we stated that "(i)ntent may be inferred from the conduct of a defendant and from circumstantial evidence," citing Deeter v. State, Wyo., 500 P.2d 68 (1972). In Fuller the defendant's intent to injure was inferred from his firing a rifle at a moving patrol car. In this case, Brightwell's placing of her arm around Emerson's neck, while holding a knife a few inches from his body and stating "I mean business," all while Emerson was driving a motor vehicle, is enough, taken collectively, to satisfy the proof requirement that she in fact intended to injure him.

The final element which must be satisfied concerns the attempted-battery requirement. The appellant contends that there was no evidence adduced at trial that...