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Duffy v. State3/21/1990
eteen, as the actual perpetrator of the crime, was also arrested and charged with armed robbery and kidnapping, W.S. 6-2-201(a)(ii). A merger argument was unsuccessfully made in defense and, on January 22, 1985, he changed his plea on both charges to guilty. On May 22, 1985, he was sentenced to ten to fifteen years on the aggravated robbery charge and fifteen to twenty years on the kidnapping charge with terms concurrent and credit awarded on the presentence confinement against the maximum sentences. A subsequent motion for sentence reduction was denied.
On July 6, 1984, in conjunction with the Frey, Sweaney and Warner complaints, a complaint was filed in county court against Duffy, charging him with aiding and abetting in the aggravated robbery and conspiracy with Frey and Sweaney to commit a burglary, an offense for which he was the only participant charged. Nothing happened to Duffy for nearly a year, when a detainer was served in Colorado where he remained in custody. Duffy requested disposition and was returned to Wyoming in June 1985, where he waived a preliminary hearing and entered pleas of innocent. A representative of the office of the public defender was appointed to represent him and, by his request, the case was reassigned resulting in designation of the other Ninth Judicial District Judge to hear the case.
On October 15, 1985, Duffy appeared in court to change his plea and was immediately sentenced. The sentence for aiding and abetting the aggravated robbery was twenty-four years, eleven months and twenty-nine days to twenty-five years (compared to the sentence of the principal perpetrator earlier given of ten to fifteen years and the co-actors Frey, fifteen to twenty years as reduced before the sentence to ten to twenty years, and Warner, ten to fifteen years as reduced to five to ten years). He was additionally sentenced to not less than nine years, eleven months and twenty-nine days and no more than ten years for conspiracy to commit burglary for which offense, either conspiracy of or burglary, none of the actual participants were ever charged. These sentences were consecutive and consecutive to the Colorado confinement which provided no credit for his pre-incarceration time as credit on the Wyoming sentence. Consequently, the sentences in total were: Sweaney, who separately committed this heinous offense and aggravated by kidnapping, received a maximum sentence of fifteen to twenty years with credit on the maximum; Frey, who organized and coordinated the crime, a sentence of ten to twenty years with credit on the minimum; Warner, as the willing participant but not involved in the entry of the house, five to ten years with credit on the minimum; and Duffy, for aiding, not only a heavier sentence than any of the participants on the aggravated robbery, but a separate charge involving burglary for which none of the participants were charged, a total sentence maximum of thirty-five years and a minimum of thirty-five years less four days with no presentence confinement credit.
Double jeopardy and multiplicity concepts in this improbable situation do invoke a one-of-a-kind case where commonly cited authority provides little relevance. But the basic result of creating two crimes out of one conduct, Pena v. State, 780 P.2d 316 (Wyo. 1989), invades the entire philosophy upon which protection against double jeopardy was initially developed and subsequently invested into not only the constitution of the United States but also most states, including Wyoming. Ingenuity of prosecutors to multiply charges is documented by this case. We have a single transaction in which Duffy participated by telephone calls to his ex-girlfriend to rob his grandmother to acquire fun
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Wyoming DUI Attorneys
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