Roberts v. State, 85-82

• Decision Date: 31 December 1985
• Docket Number: No. 85-82,85-82
• Citation: 711 P.2d 1131
• Parties: Michael E. ROBERTS, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 1131

711 P.2d 1131

Michael E. ROBERTS, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. 85-82.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

Dec. 31, 1985.

Leonard D. Munker, State Public Defender, Cheyenne, and Martin J. McClain, Appellate Counsel, argued, Laramie, for appellant.

A.G. McClintock, Atty. Gen., Gerald A. Stack, Deputy Atty. Gen., John R. Renneisen and Mary B. Guthrie, argued, Sr. Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.

Before THOMAS, C.J., and ROONEY, ^* BROWN and CARDINE, JJ., and RAPER, J., Retired.

CARDINE, Justice.

Appellant Michael Roberts was convicted of resisting arrest in a jury trial in county court. His conviction was affirmed by the district court. The primary issue for our consideration is whether a conviction under our resisting arrest statute can be upheld when the arresting officer unwittingly relies upon an invalid warrant in making the arrest. We affirm.

On the morning of October 31, 1983, Officer Glen Wright of the Sheridan police department investigated a traffic accident involving appellant. Officer Wright issued a citation for appellant's failure to yield the right-of-way at a stop sign. Later that day, after running a computer check on appellant's license and discovering that appellant had been driving without insurance and with a suspended license, Officer Wright again stopped appellant and issued two more citations. All of the citations required appellant to appear at the county court on Monday, November 7 at 10:00 a.m. Apparently Officer Wright confused his days and dates because traffic court was normally held on Tuesday rather than Monday mornings.

It is not clear from the record whether appellant strictly complied with the erroneous court date. The county court clerk testified at trial that she was not in the vacant courtroom at 10:00 a.m. and had no way of knowing whether appellant appeared. Appellant testified that he appeared on the date and time set, but the courtroom door was locked; he then reported to the clerk's office at 10:15 a.m. The clerk stated that he came to her office at 11:30 a.m., not 10:15 a.m. In any event, the clerk told appellant to come back the next day, Tuesday, November 8th.

It is undisputed that appellant failed to appear on November 8th, the rescheduled day. The clerk notified the county court commissioner of appellant's nonappearance, and the commissioner ordered the clerk to prepare a bench warrant which contained the following grounds for appellant's apprehension:

"[I]t appeared to the Court that the said Michael Earl Roberts did unlawfully violate his promise to appear before the Sheridan County Court on the 7th day of November, 1983, and was informed to reappear on the 8th day of November, 1983, before Traffic Court to enter a plea to those certain traffic citations issued by G.R. Wright on the 31st day of October, 1983 * * *."

The clerk also prepared an affidavit in support of the bench warrant, but it appears that the affidavit was not actually presented to the commissioner before he signed the warrant. She prepared the affidavit because she "needed it in writing for a backup in case there were any repercussions from this."

The bench warrant was issued to the sheriff's office and passed along to the dispatcher at the police department. On November 16, while on routine patrol, Officer Wright observed appellant unloading concrete from the back of a pickup truck. He asked appellant to come to the sheriff's office to take care of the citations and to explain his failure to appear. When appellant refused, Officer Wright informed him that he could arrest him pursuant to the bench warrant that had been issued. This seemed to have no impact on appellant. Officer Wright then approached the pickup and grabbed appellant who reacted by putting the officer in a choke hold. Officer Wright escaped by spraying appellant with mace and was then able to return to his patrol car to radio for backup. Appellant, however, was not through. He came to the patrol car, struck the officer in the face, and wrestled him to the ground. Again using mace, Officer Wright escaped and, with the help of a passerby, took appellant into custody.

An information was filed charging appellant under § 6-5-204(a), W.S.1977 (June 1983 Replacement) which states:

"A person commits a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than one (1) year, a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), or both, if he knowingly obstructs, impedes or interferes with or resists arrest by a peace officer while engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties."

In every stage of this proceeding, from pretrial motions through his appeal to this court, appellant has maintained that he had a right to use reasonable force to resist the arrest which he claims was illegal because it was based upon an invalid warrant. Appellant framed his argument in terms of the resisting arrest statute. He contends that a peace officer is not "engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties" (emphasis added) when making an illegal arrest.

Appellant has raised an additional point which was closely related to his primary defense. He tried to show at trial that Officer Wright failed to inform him of either the existence of the warrant or the reason for arrest. According to appellant, that failure caused the arrest to be illegal under Rule 4, W.R.Cr.P. and he, therefore, had the right to resist this illegal arrest.

The jury found appellant guilty of resisting arrest, whereupon the court sentenced him to the maximum penalties provided by the statute, i.e. one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. The judgment and sentence were affirmed on appeal by the district court.

THE RIGHT TO RESIST AN ARREST WHICH IS BASED UPON AN INVALID WARRANT

It is possible, under the instructions given by the trial court, that the jury arrived at a guilty verdict even though it found that the warrant was not based upon probable cause and that the arrest was illegal. ¹ The jury was instructed:

"[I]t is not the officer's duty to investigate the procedure which led to the issuance of the order or warrant for arrest. He is entitled to and can rely on the warrant. His duty is to make the arrest. He need not pass judgment on the judicial act,"

and:

"A peace officer making an arrest pursuant to an invalid warrant is justified in the use of any force which he would be justified in using if the warrant were valid, unless he knows that such warrant is invalid."

We cannot assume that the jury followed one particular route in reaching a decision on an essential element of the crime when two routes were clearly available and there was some evidence making each route a plausible choice. This is especially true when we have only a general verdict as a guide to the jury's reasoning. Fife v. State, Wyo., 676 P.2d 565, 568 (1984). We can affirm only if we find that both routes were permissible, in other words, only if the jury was properly instructed that an officer can be engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties even when executing an invalid arrest warrant. ²

Appellant argues that the trial court's instructions were contrary to the law and that they led the jury to ignore the impropriety of the bench warrant. He contends that the common law of resisting arrest still applies in Wyoming to permit a person to resist an arrest still applies in Wyoming to permit a person to resist an arrest which is based upon an invalid warrant. We disagree. The crime of resisting arrest is defined by § 6-5-204(a), W.S.1977 (June 1983 Replacement). Before a person can be convicted under this statute, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the resistance occurred while the peace officer was "engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties." One of a peace officer's official duties is found in § 7-2-102(a)(ii), W.S.1977, which authorizes an officer to "arrest a person when: * * * [h]e has reasonable grounds for believing that a warrant for the person's arrest has been issued in this state or in another jurisdiction." The execution of an invalid warrant is not excepted from a peace officer's official duty under § 7-2-102(a)(ii), supra, as it would be if the legislature had so intended. A peace officer, therefore, is lawfully performing his official duty when he makes an arrest even if it later appears that the arrest warrant is invalid. A person who resists such an arrest can be convicted under our resisting arrest statute. The jury instructions given by the trial court accurately reflected the law, and it was proper for the jury to ignore the alleged invalidity of the arrest warrant. Appellant's proffered instructions are clearly contrary to the law and were properly refused. Simms v. State, Wyo., 492 P.2d 516, 523 (1972).

Our holding in this case is supported by reason as well as by statute. It would be unfair to give the peace officers of this state the authority to make warranted arrests but deny them the protection of the resisting arrest statute. State v. Wright, 1 N.C.App. 479, 162 S.E.2d 56, 62 (1968). This unfairness would not be balanced by any legitimate gain by the persons arrested. Few, if any of them, have any idea at the time of their arrest that the warrant executed by the arresting officer might be invalid. Their later assertion of the privilege to resist is simply a post-hoc justification. We agree with what the Maryland Court of Special Appeals said in a case which is on all fours with this one:

"In the case at bar, neither the appellant nor the police officers saw the warrant before the arrest. Clearly, the appellant did not resist the arrest because he believed the warrant was defective. To permit his conviction to turn upon whether in hindsight the warrant is adjudicated defective, a highly complex procedure in itself, when he could not have known it was defective is to permit an uninformed street decision by an accused to take the place of a decision by the...