Olson v. State
| Citation | 523 P.3d 910 |
| Decision Date | 31 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | S-22-0159 |
| Parties | Matthew Justin OLSON, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Wyoming |
Representing Appellant: Office of the State Public Defender: Diane Lozano, Wyoming State Public Defender; Kirk A. Morgan, Chief Appellate Counsel.
Representing Appellee: Bridget Hill, Wyoming Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Deputy Attorney General; Kristen R. Jones, Senior Assistant Attorney General.
Before FOX, C.J., and KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, GRAY and FENN, JJ.
[¶1] Matthew Justin Olson was convicted of two counts of felony domestic battery. He claims the district court improperly admitted uncharged misconduct evidence without proper notice and a Wyoming Rule of Evidence 404(b) hearing. The admission of the evidence was error, but finding no prejudice, we affirm.
[¶2] The dispositive issue is whether Mr. Olson was prejudiced by the admission of uncharged misconduct evidence without notice and a W.R.E. 404(b) hearing.
[¶3] On April 17, 2020, Mr. Olson's then-wife, SK, requested a civil standby while she removed her belongings from Mr. Olson's Fort Bridger, Wyoming home. She also requested a welfare check because she was concerned Mr. Olson might hurt himself. Two officers from the Uinta County Sheriff's Department, Deputy Shawn Robinson and Sergeant Travis Gregory, responded to the call. As SK placed her belongings in her vehicle's trunk, Deputy Robinson noticed a bruise on her left bicep, just above the elbow joint, and asked her about it. SK did not want to say anything in front of Mr. Olson so she shook her head and told them "no."
[¶4] One of the officers suggested SK meet them at another location to discuss the bruise, and she agreed. SK told Deputy Robinson that she got the bruise two to three days earlier, and he took photos of the bruise. She testified at trial:
[¶5] On May 4, 2020, at approximately 1:00 in the morning, Mr. Olson called SK and asked her to come see him and bring cigarettes. When SK arrived, Mr. Olson was sitting on the porch, and she sat next to him. They smoked and got along for a time, and then he accused her of cheating on him and spit in her face. She went to her vehicle and was able to get in it, but Mr. Olson blocked her from closing the door. He demanded her cell phone and when she refused, he leaned into the vehicle and over her and searched her belongings on the passenger seat. He had his back to her, and when she continued to argue with him, he elbowed her more than once in the chest, knocking the air out of her. SK wanted to get someone's attention, so she honked the vehicle's horn.
[¶6] When Mr. Olson was unable to locate SK's cell phone, he got out of the vehicle and told her to get out of the car. When she refused, he tried pulling her out of the vehicle while she held onto the steering wheel. He continued pulling and ripped her sweatshirt down the middle. He then grabbed her by her hair, pulled her from the vehicle, and pinned her to the ground. SK began screaming as loud as she could, and he shoved his fingers down her throat. She could not breathe, so she bit him, and when he removed his fingers, she started screaming again.
[¶7] When SK started to scream again, Mr. Olson bit her ear. This hurt badly enough that SK thought he bit through her ear, and she stopped screaming and told him where the cell phone was. When he got off her, she ran toward a house across the street, but Mr. Olson caught up to her and pushed her down again. He told her to come back to the house and begged her not to do anything about the fight, and she agreed. As he started walking back toward the home, she ran into a community of trailers and hid behind a shed.
[¶8] A neighbor heard the car horn honking and the hollering, saw Mr. Olson pull SK from the vehicle by her hair, and called law enforcement. Law enforcement arrived, and SK reported what had happened. SK was taken to a hospital by ambulance for treatment of her injuries.
[¶9] The State charged Mr. Olson with one count of felony domestic battery (third or subsequent offense) for the April 2020 biting incident, and one count of felony domestic battery (third or subsequent offense) for the May 4, 2020, incident. After Mr. Olson was arraigned, the district court issued a scheduling and discovery order. The order directed the State to, within thirty days, provide Mr. Olson notice of any W.R.E. 404(b) evidence it intended to use at trial. The State provided no such notice.
[¶10] Despite having provided no notice that it intended to use W.R.E. 404(b) evidence at trial, the State told the jury in its opening statement of an uncharged incident involving an alleged jabbing with a pencil.
Through the course of communication with Officers Robinson – Deputies Robinson and Gregory in that April time frame, it was disclosed hesitantly from [SK] that there had been acts against her, specifically jabbing her in her abdomen and pelvic area with a pencil, and then later, that she had, in fact, been trying to prevent Mr. Olson from taking her only vehicle, and he had bitten her on her arm.
[¶11] It then elicited the following testimony from SK, without objection, about the same uncharged incident:
[¶12] A jury found Mr. Olson guilty of both charged counts of felony domestic battery. The district court sentenced him to a prison term of four to eight years on the first count, and five to nine years on the second, to be served consecutively. Mr. Olson timely appealed to this Court.
I. Because the State failed in its obligation to provide notice of the W.R.E. 404(b) evidence it intended to use at trial, the admission of the evidence was error, but our review is confined to a determination of whether the error was prejudicial.
[¶13] "Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith." W.R.E. 404(b). "A core principle of Wyoming Rule of Evidence 404(b) is that the defendant in a criminal case should not be convicted because he is an unsavory person, nor because of past misdeeds, but only because of his guilt of the particular crime charged." Jackson v. State , 2021 WY 92, ¶ 10, 492 P.3d 911, 915 (Wyo. 2021) (cleaned up) (quoting Blanchard v. State , 2020 WY 97, ¶ 18, 468 P.3d 685, 691 (Wyo. 2020) ). To guard against the misuse of W.R.E. 404(b) evidence, also known as uncharged misconduct evidence, we have a well-established and familiar procedure that must be followed if the State wishes to use such evidence at trial.
Mitchell v. State , 2020 WY 142, ¶ 22, 476 P.3d 224, 233 (Wyo. 2020) (cleaned up).1
[¶14] Despite our established mandatory process, we have observed that "the State continues to disregard the requirement to provide 404(b) notice." Id. at ¶ 28, 476 P.3d at 235. And we have repeatedly explained the difficulty this creates in our review. Id. at ¶ 21, 476 P.3d at 232. If the State fails to provide the required 404(b) notice, the district court has no opportunity to conduct a Gleason analysis, and we have no basis on which to review its exercise of discretion. Id. Under those circumstances, the admission of the evidence is error, but our analysis is "constrained to the question of prejudice." Id. (citing Blanchard , 2020 WY 97, ¶ 20, 468 P.3d at 692 ); see also Broberg v. State , 2018 WY 113, ¶ 19, 428 P.3d 167, 172 (Wyo. 2018).
[¶15] In the usual case in which we have taken this approach, the defense has made a pretrial demand for notice of the State's intent to introduce uncharged misconduct evidence, and the State has failed to provide the required notice. We...
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