Weldon v. State, 90-116
| Decision Date | 08 November 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-116,90-116 |
| Citation | 800 P.2d 513 |
| Parties | Steve Allen WELDON, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Leonard D. Munker, State Public Defender and David M. Gosar, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.
Joseph B. Meyer, Atty. Gen., John W. Renneisen, Deputy Atty. Gen., Karen A. Byrne, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Theodore Lauer, Director, Pros. Assistance Program, and Georgia Tibbets, Student Intern, for appellee.
Before URBIGKIT, C.J., and THOMAS, CARDINE, MACY and GOLDEN, JJ.
This case presents another presentence confinement issue; a subject with which this court has found much appellate activity during the past year. The issue here is presentence confinement time of 358 days applied to a life sentence to be followed by concurrent term sentences consecutively following the life sentence. We are asked to determine to what, if any, presentence confinement is to be credited under the Renfro principle, Renfro v. State, 785 P.2d 491 (Wyo.1990), where after 358 days in jail the appellant enters a plea resulting in a life sentence with consecutive term sentences then to follow.
Appellant Steve Allen Weldon, entered a bargained guilty plea to first degree murder, conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance and aggravated assault and battery. The crime resulted from his entry into a residence where he deliberately shot the victim in an execution type circumstance as the fall-out from drug dealing relationships.
The trial court imposed a life sentence for murder (which under Wyoming law, except for commutation by the Governor, is a life sentence without eligibility for parole) and two five to ten year term sentences, each to be served concurrently, for the drug conspiracy and aggravated assault and battery convictions, but consecutive to the life sentence. The trial court granted credit for presentence confinement only against the life sentence.
We modify that portion of the sentence by determining that presentence credit cannot be applied to a life sentence and should be applied to the consecutive two concurrent term sentences.
The structure of Wyoming law creates a total life sentence which is unaffected by parole or good time reductions. Consequently, only the Governor's constitutional authority under Wyo. Const. art. 4, § 5, as recognized by W.S. 7-13-801 through 7-13-806, can serve to release the incarcerated individual before he dies in prison. 1 Therefore, under present and long existent Wyoming law, the only remission except death that can be provided from the life sentence is by action through the executive power of commutation.
Undoubtedly, if and when any consideration might in the future be given to commutation for the appellant, the Governor and the recommending body of the parole board can and would take into account presentence confinement, but the commutation should be fixed in numbers to the total sentence which would then remain. Consequently, no credit will be applied judicially to the executive entry of commutation.
We are logically served in another regard in this decision to deny credit on the life sentence and to apply it to the consecutive (or concurrent) term sentences. The historical Wyoming structure of indeterminate sentencing has excluded a straight life sentence from indeterminacy in establishing a mandatory limit. That status is detailed in the provisions of W.S. 7-13-201:
Except where a term...
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Osborn v. State, 90-178
...for the Uinta County murder of O'Briant entered in Converse County on April 5, 1989, from which no appeal has been taken. Weldon v. State, 800 P.2d 513 (Wyo.1990). The present record presents references and details of the plea entered into in 1982 for the Uinta County O'Briant murder and th......
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Cloud v. State
...except death that can be provided from the life sentence is by action through the executive power of commutation. Weldon v. State, 800 P.2d 513, 514 (Wyo.1990). More specifically, Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 6–2–101 and 6–10–301(c),9 providing for life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, [2......
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...concerns of Andrew J. Johnson's conviction, there is a life sentence provided by habitual criminal enhancement. Weldon v. State, 800 P.2d 513 (Wyo.1990). With that result, I cannot so lightly pass by Johnson's denied right to counsel and his coerced incriminatory statement, both of which ra......
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Weldon v. Gordon
...terms of five-to-ten years for conspiracy and aggravated assault and battery that would be served consecutively to the life sentence. Id. at 514. In 2017, Mr. Weldon filed a petition for commutation with the Board asking it to recommend that the Governor commute his life sentence to time se......